Global Youth Service Day

April 25-27, 2008

"Global Youth Service Day is the largest annual celebration of young volunteers, where millions of young people in countries

everywhere highlight and carry out thousands of community improvement projects." (gysd.org)

2006-2007 GYSD - Volunteering at The Salvation Army in Montgomery, AL
GYSD 2005-06 - Newspaper Article about one of our FLEX students from last year.

Global Youth Service Day a chance for kids to prove us wrong
04/18/2006
By STEVE WINTERMUTE


Too many of us believe that too many of you will be the ruin of our way of life. Your kids today have no respect for your elders (us). You have no manners. You expect everything to be given to you. You don't know what work
is. Thus has it ever been. Fortunately, though, you have an opportunity we didn't to prove your elders are wrong: Global Youth Service Day.

Never heard of it? Neither had I until I met Nana, the
latest exchange student of my cousins Lori and Daniel Rothman. Nana is from Georgia - the nation. During our conversation on a recent dark and stormy night, Nana told me that she had written an article about Global Youth
Service Day for other exchange students in the U.S. When I confessed I'd never heard of GYSD, Nana patiently explained it to me.

Global Youth Service Day is the largest single service event in the world. It's held every April (Friday the 21st through Sunday the 23rd this year). Although GYSD only began in 2000 (by Youth Service America, which started
National Youth Service Day in the U.S. in 1988), millions of youth worldwide now participate, and the number grows every year.

The objectives of Global Youth Service Day are twofold. One is to promote volunteer activities benefiting our fellow creatures, our fellow man and our earth, upon whose health the existence of both depend. The other is public
awareness of the contributions that young people make to their communities around the world - 365 days a year.

 Here are portions from Nana's article in her own words:"Dear fellow students, here is my idea . Let's agree to do the same thing on the same time and date, for example April 22, at 1:00 p.m. let's pick up
trash along a roadside or river . The first country to start will be for example Japan . will start to do their project at 1:00 p.m. Then, following
the 'sun tactic,' the next countries will participate at 1:00 p.m., their time. So it goes all over the world and will finish somewhere in Hawaii . We have to set an example . that we can do important things ... We can show that we all are different by religion, race, ethnicity, gender, age, social status and so on, but we all are united, because we all are human beings, we all breathe the same air and we all live on the same planet called earth."

Global Youth Service Day isn't just for exchange students nor just on April 22. It's for all young people everywhere on any of the three days, even young people here in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. And it's not limited to picking up trash along area roads and waterways (although God knows there are lots of both here that need it).

Look around for what needs to be done that you, your friends, your team, club or organization can do in 30 minutes, three hours or whatever time fits your schedule. Clean up a Greenbelt section. Plant flowers. Help at a nursing home. Build birdhouses. Collect canned goods for a food bank. Wash the windows of a neighbor who can't. The opportunities for service to your community are limited only by your imagination.