ACE Teaching Fellows Receives National AmeriCorps Grant
The Alliance for Catholic Education's ACE Teaching Fellows program has received a $135,000 AmeriCorps grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to support 154 AmeriCorps members who will serve as teachers of record in rural and urban schools throughout the United States.
AmeriCorps members supported by these grants will serve in 108 schools in 31 communities across the country. This grant will allow ACE to expand its impact and to ensure the placement of carefully formed teachers in the most high-need schools. This partnership with AmeriCorps enables ACE to recruit highly talented candidates; supports ACE’s cohesive, research-based high quality academic teacher training; and enables ACE to place these members as teachers.
“AmeriCorps is an indispensable resource to help meet critical challenges facing our communities,” said John Staud, senior administrative director of ACE. “We’re thrilled that the Corporation for National and Community Service has recognized the value that AmeriCorps members serving with ACE offer to communities across the United States. These AmeriCorps members will meet pressing local needs as they develop civic and leadership skills that can last a lifetime.”
“AmeriCorps members are an indispensable resource for nonprofits, communities, and the individuals they serve,” said Corporation for National and Community Service CEO Wendy Spencer. “Through AmeriCorps, individuals come together across the nation with the common goal to make a lasting impact on the toughest challenges facing our nation. We salute these AmeriCorps members and their commitment in serving our country.”
The 2015 AmeriCorps grant cycle was highly competitive, due to the strong and growing demand by organizations seeking AmeriCorps resources. The 2015 competition prioritized investments in economic opportunity, education, veterans and military families and disaster services and continued a new initiative for governors and mayors.
In addition to the grant funding, CNCS will make available $175 million in education scholarships for the AmeriCorps members funded by these grants. After completing a full term of service, AmeriCorps members receive an award of $5,730 that they can use to pay for college or to pay back student loans.
AmeriCorps engages more than 75,000 members in intensive service annually to serve through nonprofit, faith-based and community organizations at 25,000 locations across the country. These members help communities tackle pressing problems while mobilizing millions of volunteers for the organizations they serve.
Since 1994, more than 900,000 Americans have provided more than 1 billion hours of service addressing critical challenges from poverty and hunger to disasters and the dropout crisis through AmeriCorps.
ACE is a leading program of the University of Notre Dame that recruits, educates and supports talented college graduates who serve as teachers in under-resourced schools across the United States. ACE teachers simultaneously participate in an innovative two-year Master of Education degree that prepares them for the rigors of the classroom and to become the next generation of educational leaders for America’s elementary and secondary schools. For more information, visit ace.nd.edu/teach.
AmeriCorps is administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that engages more than 5 million Americans in service through AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, the Social Innovation Fund and the Volunteer Generation Fund. CNCS also leads the president’s national call to service initiative, United We Serve. For more information, visit www.NationalService.gov.