[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 74 (Thursday, May 20, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1047]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   A TRIBUTE TO CITY YEAR SAN ANTONIO

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. CHARLES A. GONZALEZ

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 20, 1999

  Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask unanimous consent to 
submit into the Record an article that appeared in the San Antonio 
Express News recently.
  The article highlights City Year San Antonio, a unique public and 
private partnership program for the national service movement. City 
Year San Antonio has contributed more than 30,000 hours of service to 
the San Antonio community in its 3 years of service. City Year San 
Antonio has established a mentor and tutor program for children from 
elementary school through high school, including programs on the 
environment, domestic violence prevention, HIV/Aids awareness, and 
technology education.
  I am proud of the work and the service that City Year provides to the 
San Antonio community. I look forward to the continued success and 
future progress of City Year San Antonio.

               AmeriCorps Workers Helping Others Citywide

                          (By Joseph Barrios)

       . . . Nathan Miller grew up in a quiet Kansas City, Kan., 
     neighborhood but wanted to travel and learn about different 
     places.
       He graduated from high school and then applied to serve 
     with City Year, one of the AmeriCorps volunteer programs 
     operating in San Antonio.
       The 19-year-old Miller now works 12-hour days, sometimes 
     tutoring West Side children as part of Project Learn to Read 
     and sometimes working with San Antonio Alternative Housing on 
     minor construction for elderly neighbors.
       His favorite responsibility is helping teach a nighttime 
     English class for adults seeking citizenship.
       ``I feel like I help them get along better in their 
     lives,'' Miller said, ``I have a chance to meet people in 
     drastically different life situations from mine.''
       Miller is one of more than 140 full-time volunteers in the 
     San Antonio area serving with various AmeriCorps programs. 
     Although the volunteers are affiliated with different funding 
     agencies, their goals are the same.
       They want to tackle some of San Antonio's blight and 
     improve people's lives. AmeriCorps is the national service 
     program started by Congress and President Clinton in 1993. 
     Programs can be funded with federal dollars or matched by a 
     local ``parent'' organization.
       The George Gervin Youth Center has 20 full-time AmeriCorps 
     volunteers and Habitat for Humanity has a dozen full-time 
     volunteers working in San Antonio.
       Miller works for the 10-year-old City Year program, which 
     has 70 AmeriCorps volunteers and works out of an office 
     downtown.
       An average day for h im varies somewhat from Rudy Beltran, 
     23, a full-time volunteer with the Just Serve AmeriCorps 
     program run by San Antonio Fighting Back of the United Way.
       Beltran, based at the Barbara Jordan center of the city's 
     East Side, is a full-time student at the University of Texas 
     at San Antonio. He also teaches an evening, English-as-a-
     Second-Language class at Highlands High School and tutors 
     high school students in English.
       Recently, Beltran helped several students prepare for the 
     Texas Assessment of Academic Skills Test.
       ``I definitely get a lot out of it,'' Beltran said. ``A 
     couple of students came up to me and said it really helped 
     them. They thought they had passed it.''
       Fighting Back, a substance abuse, crime and violence 
     prevention and community development program, has 60 full-
     time volunteers. They are recruiting more than 100 high 
     school students for a new part-time service program in San 
     Antonio.
       City Year and Southside High School recently started a 
     part-time volunteer program for students called City Heroes.
       Most of the full-time volunteers started their year of 
     service in August and will finish in June.
       Volunteers operate primarily on the city's West, East and 
     South sides but can participate in programs anywhere in the 
     city, said Scott Hirsch of the Texas Commission on 
     Volunteerism and Community Service. Volunteers themselves 
     come from all areas of town and sometimes--like Miller--from 
     out of town.
       Hirsch said the commission is working on guidelines to 
     evaluate how effective volunteers throughout Texas have been 
     in the past five years since the AmeriCorps program was 
     founded. Overall, the various volunteer programs are going 
     strong.
       Hirsch added that associations with other programs can 
     cause confusion. ``Sometimes, when you're at a cocktail party 
     and you mention you work for AmeriCorps, people think it no 
     longer exists,'' Hirsch said.
       Some of the benefits to the program are intangible, said 
     Bill Blair, director at the George Gervin Youth Center.
       Regularly, when volunteers are painting a house or cleaning 
     up an abandoned lot, neighbors will stop by and offer their 
     help.
       ``I say, `Sure, come on and join us.' You can't beat that 
     sort of thing,'' Blair said.
       Neighbors can also submit ideas for service projects to any 
     of the programs like City Year or Fighting Back.
       AmeriCorps volunteer benefits can include health insurance, 
     a weekly stipend, uniforms and a post-service education award 
     of $4,725 that can pay for school or student loans. The 
     program requires a minimum of 1,700 hours a year from 
     volunteers.
       This fall, Miller will begin college in Vermont. He said 
     his favorite times as a volunteer come when someone thanks 
     him for work that an AmeriCorps volunteer did.
       ``I have people come up to me all the time. They see your 
     shirt and want to thank you,'' Miller said. ``They can be 
     thanking you for something that happened three years or three 
     days ago.''

     

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