Youth Service America

Youth Service America (YSA) provides leadership to over 200 organizations committed to increasing the quantity and quality of opportunities for youth, ages 5 to 25 years old, to serve communities locally, nationally, or globally. YSA's mission is to strengthen the effectiveness, sustainability, and scale of the youth service movement. Service-learning is also part of this movement.

YSA efforts that support the youth service and service-learning movements include:

• National Youth Service Day
  Through funding provided by the State Farm Companies Foundation, State Farm is the presenting sponsor for National Youth Service Day, an event held annually in April. National Youth Service Day (NYSD), the largest service event in the world, reaching over 60 million people, recognizes youth service at conferences across the country and encourages local organizations to sponsor volunteer projects on that day
• Servenet.org is YSA's award-winning website and the most comprehensive site on the Internet dedicated to service and volunteering. Home to a broad national database of local volunteer opportunities, events, jobs, news, effective practices and quotes, SERVEnet also matches the skills, experiences, and enthusiasm of volunteers who wish to help with organizations that need them.
• Co-presenter of the annual National Service-Learning Conference, a forum for educators to discuss incorporating service learning into curriculum across the country
• National Service Briefing is YSA's most widely distributed and read publication for the service and service-learning field. As a weekly email publication, it highlights up to date information such as effective practices, funding, awards, legislation, corporate initiatives, calendar events, and "everyday heroes" - profiles of youth leading innovative service initiatives.
• Project Plan-It! is YSA's electronic project planning tool to help young people develop a custom plan for their service project. Project Plan-It! uses an interactive series of questions and templates that guide the user through the project planning process, and allows them to print out their plan, timeline, budget, funding proposal, press release, service-learning reflection plan, and other helpful resources.

For more information visit the YSA Web site.

Printable Overview of Youth Service America (PDF 39 KB)