ALERT Dear National Service Colleagues, In early April we will take another important step toward improving the speed and reliability of our technology environment by moving our production systems to new servers at the Corporation’s headquarters.

In order to make this upgrade, our systems

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– including the My AmeriCorps Portal, Recruitment System, eGrants and eSPAN – will be unavailable from 8:00 PM Eastern, Friday, April 3 through 8:00 AM Eastern, Monday, April 6. I am alerting you to this scheduled system outage now to enable you to plan your work accordingly and to encourage you to refer to the operating status page for additional updates and to learn system status.

I appreciate your patience and understanding as we continue the necessary process of enhancing and strengthening our systems.

Thank you.

Kristin McSwain Chief of Program Operations The Corporation for National and Community The Corporation for National and Community Service(the Corporation) announces the anticipated availability of approximately $ 4. 2 million for qualified organizations to provide subgrants, training, and other assistance to local partnerships to implement community-based service-learning projects.

These funds will be awarded to an estimated five to eight eligible applications with awards ranging from approximately $350,000 to $450,000 annually for a project period of up to three years.

The Corporation’s mission is to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic engagement through service and volunteering.

Learn and Serve America Community-Based grants are designed to involve school-age youth in community-based service-learning programs that provide direct and demonstrable educational, public safety, human, or environmental service, and to provide training and technical assistance to youth-serving organizations.Key agency priorities for the 2009 Community-Based Healthy Communities initiative include:
• Expanding opportunities for out-of-school time service-learning activities that increase civic engagement, leadership capacity and community problem solving skills and promote retention in school and readiness for careers and post-secondary education.• Engaging young people, particularly youth in disadvantaged circumstances, in the planning and implementation of service-learning activities that directly address community needs in order to build healthier communities.

• Developing community partnerships at the local level that include well-defined roles for public or profit nonprofit organization partners and adult volunteers engaged in service-learning programs.