SUS AND THE LEGACY OF DR. KING

Posted by Donna Colonna, CEO, Services for the UnderServed:

On the eve of his assassination in Memphis in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.” (I’ve Been to the Mountaintop)

Since 1994, Dr. King’s birthday has been established as a national day of service. This year, a record number of Americans volunteered across the country to bridge the economic and cultural extremes that divide us and help fulfill America’s promise of equality, freedom and justice. Their efforts brought us closer to becoming a better nation.The individuals who served others during this past Martin Luther King Day are part of a much larger army striving to do good. In the last year for which there is available data, nearly 62 million Americans performed unpaid work for a nonprofit organization. Every hour they spent honors Dr. Kings’s life and legacy, and brings us a step up towards the mountaintop from which Dr. King gazed upon a promised land. Join me in saluting them all.

Do you work in a soup kitchen?  Do you write letters advocating for military veterans? Do you raise money for people with disabilities? Do you teach at a youth or senior center? Because we can all learn from and be inspired by stories of volunteerism, please comment by sharing your own.

Looking Forward

Posted by Yves Ades, Ph.D – Senior Vice President for Mental Health Programs and AIDS Services

As the year 2010 begins, non-profits throughout the country are bracing themselves for cuts in public funding which promise to be painful, and which will be yet one more message of expectation from our government leaders that we do more with less.

Well, I know I’ve been here before.  In fact, I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t the expectation that in one way or another public funding was at risk. We have always had to plead for funding adjustments that are sometimes granted, and sometimes even granted and rescinded.  Somehow though, with or without the increases we still go on and do the work that is needed to assure the quality of life that we as a society hold dear.

Why is that?  We do it because we believe that it needs to be done and we are confident we do it well, and in fact, because we can do it better and more cost-effectively than government administered programs. We also remain steadfast against the economic storm because we believe that the outstretched hand heals and that with every hand that touches us back, the world becomes a slightly better place.

With 2010, we are entering the second decade of the millennium, and narrowly escaping the trauma of the first. So, putting the past behind us, we must look ahead with hope.  Who better than us to know the power of hope?  We offer it everyday to those who have misplaced or lost it.  We tell them not to give up.  We lend ourselves, our hope, to them until they rekindle their own.

We’ll get through this year and the years ahead by preserving our precious resources, by going that extra mile, by looking out for each other, by doing more than what is asked of us, and finally by holding fast to the values that unite us as a community,

I wish a Happy New Year to all members of the non-profit community.