The Serve America Act, a Really Big Deal

The Serve America Act, just signed, is a really big deal, a call to service for us all.

It's not hard to see that it's never been more important for us all to work together. There are a lot of problems to be solved, but maybe that's good; solving tough problems is something Americans are good at, when we have a leader who shares our values.

Many people want to fully dedicate themselves to service: they're troops, teachers, social workers, cops, and all manner of public servants. We should remember the nobility of the public service they perform.

Me, I spend a lot of every day performing customer service and see real human behavior. I see everyday that Americans are eager to help out, particularly the millennial youth, maybe the new "civic generation."

Serve America provides means for those who want to fully engage, such as by seriously increasing support for Americorps, increasing the number of participants from 75,000 positions annually to 250,000.

This act includes a lot of special efforts intended to help Americans figure out how to better help America. That includes the Social Innovation Fund to expand proven initiatives and provide seed funding for experimental initiatives.

Serve America provides for serve.gov, which brings together service opportunities from a number of sources. It's genuinely innovative, the first U.S. web site which brings together data from a number of sources, Web 2.0-style.

The Summer of Service program helps kids start a career in service.

The Serve America Act's a great start; let's get moving.