National PTA Launches Call to Service for Parents

In today’s society, families are struggling with the effects the economic downturn has had on their finances and their daily lives. Communities are having to cut budgets, and schools are fighting to provide top-quality education for children while balancing needs with available funding. This is exactly the time when every community in the United States must join together and work to protect our way of life and our standards in providing students with the best possible education.

The National PTA has long been involved in the support of educational programs for children, and now they are further increasing that history by calling on its millions of members as well as families and educational advocates all across the country to support and participate in a new initiative launched by the White House.

The "United We Serve" initiative unveiled by President Obama calls on Americans to serve their local communities between June 22 and September 11. The program engages the help of Americans in addressing needs of their communities related to education, energy, health, and the environment. PTA also asks its members, supporters, and partners to join them in focusing year-round on sustaining community service related to education, families of military personnel, and health programs for children and adults even after the "United We Serve" program ends.

The comprehensive resource launched by the National PTA is available online at www.pta.org/calltoservice, where supporters can find step-by-step plans for carrying out the project, in addition to ideas for specific projects and information about successful projects completed by local PTAs in communities throughout the country. Other resources online will include checklists, proposed timelines for projects, and sample invitations that can be used as templates for inviting the public and elected officials to participate in the initiative.

Service projects included in the initiative can include distributing books to the community, reading to children, holding library card participation drives, health events for back to school programs, and other projects that can be aligned with the mission and work conducted by the PTA. In partnership with other organizations, the National PTA is already working to distribute thousands of library cards and books to children over the next few months.

The PTA’s website encourages the submission of stores from people who have completed projects related to the initiative. These community stories and completion results will be shared with the Corporation for National and Community Service, as well as President Obama, after the initiative ends.

During his inaugural address, President Obama spoke about this being a defining era for our country, and how we all must embrace the national spirit of service that in the past has been so firmly focused on leading America to being the great country that it is. The United States has overcome war, injustice, disease, and segregation, among other battles. Now every community must make its own contribution to the history of America by joining the Naitonal PTA in making a lifelong commitment to serve their communities and their country.