Hello NCL members. I am forwarding some information related to a concern we have regarding changes at CNCS (which runs VISTA/Senior Corps, etc.). They're quickly implementing a plan to regionalize all the state offices with a very short timeline. All 45 state offices will be closed in the next few months and regional offices will be put in place later in the year. This local presence has helped us immeasurable here in Minnesota and I'm assuming in other states. We are working on a campaign to halt this process so it can be studied by more discerning eyes. If you want to know more please shoot me an email or call. We have made some headway with our own congressional delegation but it would be great to see some other states joining in. Eric Eric Nesheim Executive Director Minnesota Literacy Council enesheim@mnliteracy.org 651-251-9070 Hello, VISTA and Senior Corps grantees and intermediaries, Thank you all for your diligent work to keep our CNCS state offices open! A few resources and updates follow and are attached. I know some grantees already have their own similar resources created as well, but I want to share ours in case anyone else finds them helpful. Please share widely and adapt as you desire. The more noise we can make from more states, the better! ATTACHED: * Template sign-on letter, to circulate among VISTA and Senior Corps grantees in your state to sign and send to your Congressional delegation (items highlighted in yellow are for you to fill in with your information - you can find the statistics for national service in your state here<https://www.nationalservice.gov/impact-our-nation/state-profiles> to get the total numbers of volunteers in your state - and of course, you can adapt the letter or make further edits as desired). We would recommend following this up with a call-in/letter campaign among your networks of host sites, alumni, etc. * Template fact sheet/talking points - again, you can adapt and make edits as desired; we put ours on our agency letterhead, for example. Template phone call/email messages here<https://mnliteracy.org/advocacy/communicationtemplates-cncs>. * Names of relevant House/Senate committee chairs and CNCS leadership - if you'd like to send your letters to others beyond just your state's delegation UPDATES: * Rumor has it that Senators Shelby (Senate Appropriations Chair) and Blunt (Chair of Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health, Human Services & Education) may be willing to move on this if they start hearing "noise" from other senators on this, but that needs to happen sooner rather than later. * The Montana state office will be closing as early as February 1, just a couple weeks away! Time is of the essence. Once state offices start closing, it will be much harder to re-open them. If you haven't contacted your Congress people yet, please do so soon. * A take-away from our meetings with our Congress people is that this is a great opening for continued conversation. If we can first accomplish getting a pause on implementation of the Transformation Plan until further review, and keep state offices open, then we can work on advocating for concerns about other aspects of the Transformation Plan and any other messages we want to advocate to make national service more effective, accessible, etc. We know many of you are already including messages on concerns about other aspects of the Plan in your asks of your Congress people - fantastic! Let's keep at it! * On that note, you can see the comments submitted from many on this email list and others to the Federal Register during the Public Comments period<https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=CNCS-2018-0011-0001>, if you are interested. * On another related note, take a look at the bill that Senators Duckworth (IL), Gillibrand (NY), Blumenthal (CT), Klobuchar (MN), and Baldwin (WI) recently introduced<https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/news/press-releases/duckworth-gillibrand-blumenthal-klobuchar-baldwin-introduce-bill-to-expand-national-service-opportunities-for-young-americans-and-make-college-more-affordable> to expand national service - S.3665 21st Century American Service Act<https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3665>. Could be another point of advocacy. It is currently in the Senate Finance Committee docket. * Once we send off our grantees sign-on letter to our Congressional delegation, we will be working with our Rep. McCollum's staff to generate a sign-on letter for our Congress people to then circulate amongst themselves and send to CNCS leadership and/or committee chairs. * Our Rep. McCollum's staff asked if we know of any national groups that are active and concerned about this as well, that they might be able to connect with from a DC/national angle in addition to the state-by-state angle - e.g., Council of Mayors, other national associations. If so, please let me know and I can pass the information along to Rep. McCollum so they can connect. Rep. McCollum's office is planning to contact the national CNCS office and start asking questions to signal they want to know what's going on. * Additional strategies to consider: o op-eds in local and national publications (The Hill would be a good one to submit to, if anyone gets op-eds published, please share) o get your Congress people to schedule hearings (they can do local field hearings in your state) and your members, host sites, alumni can testify to the value of national service and state offices o get Governors and state legislatures to take action as well with resolutions/etc o generate media attention o anything else? * States represented on this email list (our Rep. asked - it may be helpful to share with your Congress people too in order to indicate to them how widespread the concern is - and I know there are others beyond this list, this is just who I have been able to make connections with so far): Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Louisiana, Michigan, West Virginia, Pennsylvania Thank you, everyone! Yours in service, Meghan Paul-Cook National Service Director Minnesota Literacy Council 700 Raymond Ave, Suite 180 St Paul, MN 55114 mpaulcook@mnliteracy.org<mailto:mpaulcook@mnliteracy.org> 651-251-9069 www.mnliteracy.org<http://www.mnliteracy.org> she, her, hers