Starting up again

I tried setting up a blog eons ago entitled "Delusions of Blandeur", only to discover that someone else had claimed that title. Tickled with complete failure I could not think of another title and so nothing got posted.

It is now 15 months later and I am beginning a year long term of service with AmeriCorps as a VISTA (Volunteer in service to America). Though AmeriCorps was created during the Clinton Administration, many younger Americans do not know that it is just an umbrella organization sheltering half a dozen national service programs.

Some of these programs are older than others. The oldest is the NCCC, or National Civilian Community Corps, which was created as an employment opportunity in Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. It gave unemployed citizens a temporary occupation, during which they would be paid a modest wage to perform direct service. This direct service supported many nationwide projects during the 1930's from building construction to repairing roadsigns. Nowadays, the NCCC places 18-24 year olds in college campuses for 6-8 weeks so they have a place to operate from while they perform many direct service tasks around their temporary community.

But I am not an NCCC. I'm a VISTA. A VISTA performs a whole year of indirect service for a non profit or community organization whose mission is to fight poverty. The VISTA builds capacity for an organization to function and grow.

VISTA is often dubbed the "domestic Peace Corps" for two reasons. First, its mission is similar to that of the Peace Corps. Both are national service programs that allow American citizens to contribute to a community. Second, both programs share the same founder.

Shortly before I left to begin my service I came across a documentary on PBS about Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. Shriver was a close friend to President Kennedy and with his help, Shriver created the Peace Corps in the early 1960's. But this was not the end. Shriver responded to the events of 1963 and in 1964 had President Johnson establish the Volunteers in Service to America to continue Kennedy's vision for the nation. The first volunteers began their year of service in 1965 and the program was given much promotion. Of course, then Vietnam happened.

But despite all of the expensive foreign policy flyovers and blowback since then, VISTA has continued to provide citizens a chance to commit a year of their life to service.

That is my reason for starting up a blog again. Unless the government cuts my job I will be serving as a VISTA until January of 2009. This will be a testament to national service as a movement, and I'll be sure to throw in some of my own opinions.

I hope it will be funny.