Help Habitat for Humanity Keep its AmeriCorps Members

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Help Habitat for Humanity keep its AmeriCorps members

For more than a decade, volunteers from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) have partnered with Habitat for Humanity and its affiliates to build affordable housing for thousands of partner families. In the last year alone, they helped Habitat build approximately 1,900 homes.

Now those programs face steep funding cuts in the president’s 2009 budget proposal to Congress. Habitat and its affiliates rely on these programs for volunteers and financial assistance to help us serve families in need.

Please take a moment to send this email to your members of Congress asking them to fully fund national service programs.

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Subject:*

Dear (recipient name),

I write to express my profound concerns regarding the potential impact of proposed national service funding cuts.  Habitat for Humanity’s longstanding partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) has served an important role in its efforts to expand access to affordable homeownership and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.  Habitat for Humanity has administered one of the nation’s largest national service partnerships since the program’s inception in 1994 and remains one of the greatest beneficiaries of CNCS programs.  In the 2005-2006 program year alone, national service members engaged more than 200,000 volunteers contributing 2.3 million service hours to Habitat for Humanity in communities across the country.  National service members contributed to the construction of 1,900 houses, providing simple decent shelter to 7,500 partner family members.

In spite of the Herculean efforts of national service members around the country, national service appropriations have continued to decline, and the President’s 2009 budget calls for even greater reductions.  Such cuts not only would be devastating to CNCS, but would have significant ramifications for the organizations and the communities in which national service members work.  In light of the significant contributions that national service members continue to make both in the Gulf Coast recovery efforts and across the country, I urge you to fund national service programs at the following levels for FY 2009:

•	AmeriCorps State and National Grants at $312 million; 
•	National Service Trust at $143 million, a sufficient level for 75,000 members; 
•	AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) at $26.7 million; 
•	Learn and Serve America at $46 million; 
•	Innovation, Demonstration and Assistance at $31 million; and
•	Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) at $95.46 million.

Thank you for your consideration and for your support of the work that Habitat for Humanity is doing throughout the country.

You will receive an email confirming that your message was sent. Check the box if you would also like to receive a copy of this letter.

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