A New York Volunteer Effort Will Soon Spread to 10 Cities

Jan. 17, 2010, The New York Times — Since April, they have spruced up a dozen city blocks, helped give 164,000 flu vaccinations and installed 178,000 compact fluorescent bulbs in public housing. They are volunteers, part of an ambitious New York effort to tap unpaid workers as a permanent, strategic element in solving city problems.

The program, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s response to President Obama’s call to increase civic service, began in April and includes nearly 200 AmeriCorps Vista volunteers who have fanned out across the city as a kind of consulting force, helping nonprofit agencies fine-tune their programs and recruit and deploy even more volunteers. Their work, city officials say, has resulted in 18,000 new volunteers serving 67,000 New Yorkers.

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