testimony #2

i met with the congressional service cacuss this afternoon and many promising things came up. it looks as though there is a very good possibility that americorps ed awards will cease to be taxed in the near future. just as important, and even more likely, the ed award will stop being counted as family income-this will help lower income students qualify for federal finicial aid. also exciting is the growing calls for a national service academy. this would be a public/federal venture where students would have their tuition completly paid for after five years of service. basicially a naval academy for service. we'll see.

many people have asked to see my testimony for the house sub-committee on healthy families and communities. i only had an evening to prepare, so i'm not exactly proud of the writing, but here it is (this is the spoken testimony, the written testimony has extra stuff but i like this one better). you can watch it if you click on the link here http://edworkforce.house.gov/hearings/hfc022707.shtml

good afternoon. my name is tommy daigle. i was an americorps member with habitat for humanity in charlotte, nc from august, 2004 to july, 2006. i served two one-year terms immediatley following my graduation from george mason university. it was a fantastic, life-changing, and hubling experience that developed my leadership skills through day to day physicial labor, confronting new and different life experiences, helping others, interacting with people of all ages from all over the world, seving in a leadership capacity for people my senior, and feeling that exhausted satisfaction at the end of every day that i had done something for someone else.

i want to tell you how i came to service, and what it has done to me.

my parents, both teachers, instilled in me principles of social justice. i learned from them that when something is wrong, you have the power to change it and you owe it to your community , and the world, to put your ideals in motion and provide for its betterment. they never told me that i had to serve but they raised me to be responsible and to know that i could make a difference.
mary kay turner taught my 11th grade world religions class and 12th grade ethics class. she taught us to look at things in this world, and to form an education opinion about them. she taught us not to sit and watch things happen but to use the knowledge and our opionions to get involved. we studied human rights leaders and activists throughtout history. we stuided movements of major non-violent social change. we also studied and mourned those who were killed because of hatred, notable mathew shepard and james byrd, both who were murdered in my senior year. mrs. turner taught us that a broken system could be fixed, but it would never be fixed with complacency. if there were going to be changes, we would have to make them ourselves.
the first time i ever heard about americorps was from a high school acquaintance who joined americorps nccc when he was 18. when i saw hiim again a few years later he had changed. while in high school he had gotten in trouble, almost dropped out, and more than experimented with drugs. after seving with americorps he was drug-free, attending college, and continuing to volunteer. it left me with a strong frist impression of americorps. while researching how i could work with habitat for humanity i found that hfh was an americorps grantee. it seemed like a great fit.
i decided to commit a year of service to habitat americorps in charlotte, north carolina. after the year, the plan went, i would return to virginia to teach in the public schools. needless to say, one year turned into two.
i had a great two years. we worked in 10 and 11 person teams based in charlotte. we served as crew leaders for groups of people made up of bankers, lawyers, world war II vets, carpenters, and homeowners. they came to us, asked us what to do and expected us to be their leaders. we became a very tight-knit group. over the two years we built close to 100 houses in charlotte, led and worked with over 5,000 volunteers, and grew into mature citizens. in addiotion to the work in charlotte, we worked on houses in ft. myers, fl, dallas, tx, and, after hurriciane katrina, jackson county, ms.
serving in americorps prompts a growth of maturity in almost all members. your job becomes a lifestyle that recognizes that you are working for things that are greater than yourself. there is a change in persona that occurs when you realize that you are making a concrete difference in another person's life. there is a sense of civic duty and civic pride when you realize the change in the community that you are a part of.
i want to tell a quick story that reinforced my belief in the importance of our job. in the early summer of 2006, all habitat americorps memebers met in dallas, tx to build several houses. my teammates worked on a house along side the homeowners and americorp teams from ft. collins (katie flatirons pointed out that i made a mistake here. they were from boulder. sorry) college station, co, and seattle, wa. the house we were building, and the one next door, was for former residents of the lower ninth ward of new orleans. we quickly became close friends with the other americorps memebers working on the house and got to know the family who, in a few weeks, would be moving in. the family was made up of a married couple in their late 50's and their young granddaughter. they had been separated in the storm and were reunited months later in dallas. over a work week of twelve hour days we laughed, became close, worked hard, and built a beautiful house. we were proud of the results.
at the dedication ceremony, we crowded together on the front porch and listened as the dallas habitat staff member presented a bible, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of grape juice. the family was given an opportunity to give their thoughts. as they started to explain how they had been happy in new orleans only to loose everything, were separated in the evacuation of the superdome, and had not known if the other had even survived, emotion overtook them. they held onto each other, ctying, unable to do anything other than thank us and thank god for the new beginning. we could only congratulate them on the new start and thank them for what they had give us.
we left dallas convinced of the importance of our service and of the impact that it had not only on the families and communities, but upon each of us. the big question that many of my teammatesand friends would later share with me was this: "whose life was changed more by our service; did the work do more for the family or for us?" it's a question that outsiders laugh at but those who have served understand.
i've met hundreds of americorps members through habitat. of the members i actually served with, more than half are currenlty serving with other nonprofits or in a public service capacity. every person i served with continues to volunteer. service sticks. my teammates are proof of that.