Taking a year before college or as a recent graduate to serve locally in the US has become very possible and popular thanks to the wealth and diversity of Americorps programs. Even on the political circuit we have heard Sen. Barack Obama talk about his commitment to expanding national service programs like Americorps, especially as a way for college students to serve and be repaid with tuition scholarships. On the other side of the aisle Sen. John McCain has also issued a call for more funding for Americorps programs. Recently I got to catch up with one such exceptional group of Americorps-affiliated volunteers who are part of Seattle/King County's City Year program.

City Year is 10 year-old program in Seattle made up of a corps members 17- 24 years old who provide social and academic support to local high-risk elementary, middle and high school students. Overall City Year now has programs in 18 locations.

What struck me most about the City Year program is not just that corps members are providing a great service as tutors and mentors, but at the heart of the program is also the quest to "inspire an ethic of service in children and youth by leading them in community service learning activities."

For middle school and high school students for example they engage them in "mini City-Year" programs that provide them with leadership development and service-learning experiences. This manifests as the "Young Heros" program for middle school students, and the high coh influence school version "City Heros." Through service students in these programs are able to feel more connected to their communities and come to understand they can be agents of change. They help the student participants to really feel the proclamation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that, "everybody can be great, because everybody can serve."

In addition a hallmark of the City Year program is using Corps members to reach out to students who are at risk of falling through the cracks of the public education system. One of these programs "Getting Youth Beyond Barriers in School" or GYBBIS has corps members who work with suspended middle school youth from the Seattle and Highline School Districts to provide academic support and mentorship.

Corps members also work with local foster care youth through partnerships with organizations such as Casey Family Programs and Treehouse. City Year points out that in King County only 33% of young people in foster care graduate from high school compared to 70% of teens graduating from high school in Washington State as a whole.

And clearly City Year members are making a big difference in the lives of all the students they touch because they report that "100% of teachers stated that they agreed/strongly agreed that City Year corps members improved their students' attitude towards learning and helped improve their academic performance." And no doubt a lot of the success of City Year members' efforts is their closeness in age to the students they work with. Being so close in age and thus almost their peers puts them in a unique position to connect with the students and to be role models.

The miraculous thing about City Year volunteers, and all Americorps volunteers for that matter, is they really take on a challenge not just in service, but also in living simply. For their work they receive a very modest weekly stipend of $185 and upon graduation an Education Award of $4,725 to be used for college tuition or education loan repayment. (though not to mention very snazzy uniforms from Timberland!)

But in my visit to the City Year office I saw that coh influence t