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Obama, leaders speak on service at Texas A&M
By: Meagan O'Toole-Pitts
Issue date: 10/19/09 Section: News
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"Service isn't separate from our national priorities or second to our national priorities, it's integral to achieving our national priorities," Obama said. "It's how we will meet the challenges of our time."
Obama has big shoes to fill as the new leader of the American volunteer service movement - started by former president George H.W. Bush in 1989 - and signing the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act was a good start, said national leaders at the presidential forum on community service.
As a part of Obama's "United We Stand" campaign launched this summer, the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act followed in suit with the first National Service Act of 1990 and the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 in an effort to promote and organize volunteer opportunities.
"It's estimated that U.S. nonprofit organizations over the next decade need to attract some 640,000 new leaders," said Bush, the Points of Light Institute founder.
The forum celebrated the volunteer contributions of more than 4,500 Daily Points of Light Award winners - 150 in the audience - and awarded Texas A&M student and Big Event Director Mallory Myers at the forum.
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