ServeAustin Collaborative, the Austin Service Year Impact Community, operates with the belief that service can build the skills people need to address the impact of racial and economic inequity in their own lives and in the communities they impact. This collaborative of Austin’s eight state AmeriCorps organizations is working together to make each organization more diverse, inclusive, and equitable so that more Central Texans have access to service year experiences that offer a meaningful path to employment and higher education.
Lead organization:
ServeAustin Collaborative
Focus issues:
- Early Childhood Interventions
- K-12 Education
- College Completion
- Homelessness Services
- Disaster Recovery
- Workforce Development
Current number of service years in impact community:
Approximately 600 via ServeAustin Collaborative’s eight partner organizations
Current number of service year programs in community:
Eight in ServeAustin Collaborative
Growth goal:
Right now, our goal is to fill every one of our service year roles by engaging our Central Texas community in new ways and making these opportunities more visible and accessible to local residents. As we strengthen our local recruitment efforts, we believe we will begin to open the possibility of expanding the number of service year opportunities available.
How service years have/will help your community address local challenges:
“Service years offer an effective way for our organizations to tackle community problems while providing a tangible benefit for those involved, including quality job-skill development, resume building, and a viable path to employment in the community. Service year participants in Central Texas complete more than 700,000 hours of service each year, a value of more than $17 million for our region. In total, ServeAustin Collaborative’s eight partner organizations provide access to basic resources and improve the educational progress of more than 27,000 Austin residents each year.” - Natalie Gray, Managing Director, Serve Austin Collaborative
How working with Service Year Alliance/being a member of the Impact Community Network has been helpful:
“ServeAustin Collaborative is grateful for the opportunity to engage with other Service Year Alliance Impact Communities. Through this network, we are able to leverage resources and best practices from other communities while sharing what we are learning in Central Texas. The chance to collaborate with others doing similar work in different places - facing some of the same challenges and discovering new approaches - is absolutely invaluable.” - Natalie Gray, Managing Director, Serve Austin Collaborative
