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RSVP Leads National Days of Service

RSVP is a National Service program, specifically a part of Senior Corps. Our primary funding comes from the Federal government entity, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). Along with our Federal funding, we receive guidance on how we should spend that funding. Therefore much of our volunteer recruitment, training, and placement are focused in CNCS priority areas. This is a good thing because some of those priorities include helping children learn, feeding those who are hungry, providing companionship to the elderly and homebound, and making our communities safer with disaster preparedness and response activities. These priorities are CNCS priorities because they are also priorities of most of our nation’s taxpayers.

Another way CNCS guides us is by celebrating National Days of Service. These Days of Service include 9/11 Day of Service and Martin Luther King (MLK) Day of Service (January 18th 2016). CNCS asks that all National Service programs participate in Days of Service. This presents a great opportunity for cross-stream partnerships. Partners of National Service in the Quad Cities include RSVP, AmeriCorps, Legacy Corps and AmeriCorps/Vista. In our community, RSVP plays a lead role in coordinating with other programs these Days of Service activities. This coordination has led to some real community benefits. Here are a few examples:

• Last January for MLK Day, RSVP partnered withthe Davenport Volunteer Connection which is also partly funded with CNCS funds, United Neighbors, and local AmeriCorps members to collect money and food for local food pantries as part of the “Souper Bowl of Caring” project. Hundreds of dollars for the food pantries were collected through this partnership.
• RSVP members also took a leadership role on the steering committee for the future MLK Memorial Plaza planned for Davenport. RSVP staff and volunteers continue to support this project. It will result in a beautiful interactive monument and learning area for the community.
• This year for 9/11 Day of Service, RSVP partnered with Scott and Rock Island Counties’ Emergency Management agencies to orient and train new disaster Volunteer Registration Center (VRC) team members. These team members also included AmeriCorps members. On November 4th the VRC team held a drill. The results of that drill and training are that our communities will be much better able to process and utilize spontaneous volunteers in a disaster. This will also help to ensure citizen safety.

At this time we are considering what we’ll do for MLK Day of Service this January. We may do the Souper Bowl of Caring, or the MLK Memorial plaza committee may ask us to use the day to help create community awareness of that project–or we may do something different, such as putting needed items with food backpack programs for children living in poverty. This is a valuable project that another RSVP program is doing. Whatever we do, you can be assured that RSVP volunteers will lead other National Service members in making our communities a better and safer place to live. If you wish to participate in National Days of Service–or any of our many volunteer opportunities–please call RSVP at 309-793-4425 or email rsvp@wiaaa.org. Whatever days you choose to serve on, you can be certain that your service will also help the community.