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Paper 22

USA

Donald J. Eberly

The largest NYS program in U.S history was the Civilian Conservation Corps of 1933-1942. A total of three million young men participated in the CCC with a peak enrolment of 530,000 in 1935. It was successful in every respect. Research has shown that the value of services provided by Corps members exceeded the cost of the program many times over

The Peace Corps began in 1961 and has enabled more than 100.000 young people to serve overseas - current enrolment is about 6.000.

Many youth service programs sponsored by states, cities and NGOs were launched in the 1980s.

In 1993, the National Service Act was enacted. It has an annual budget of about $500 million and constitutes the greatest expansion of NYS since the CCC in the 1930¹s.

The largest part of the 1993 act is AmeriCorps, which awards grants to states, localities and NGOs to expand the youth service programs begin new programs. The number of young people in these full time service programs has grown from about 5,000 to about 25,000 in recent years. The 1993 Act also supports a conservation corps modelled on the CCC . The other major part of the act gives support to schools, colleges and universities for service -learning programs, where students receive academic recognition for learning acquired from service activities.