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Call to Service in Franklin Township - June 1 (7pm)

CHANGE is acting as a Sponsor of the Citizens' Campaign's Call to Service in Franklin Township (Somerset County).  As a Sponsor, CHANGE will use its network of contacts and relationships to mobilize the residents of Franklin Township to participate in and support the Call to Service.  This campaign will kick-off on Monday, June 1 at the Franklin Township Library (485 DeMott Lane, Somerset, NJ) from 7pm to 8:30pm.  All are welcome, including anyone from other municipalities that may be interested in launching a Call to Service in their town, city, or township.  CHANGE and Citizens' Campaign are ready to guide and support such efforts elsewhere.  More information on what the Call to Service is all about is provided below.

Call to Service
The Citizens’ Campaign has launched a statewide “Call to Service” in order to draw on our state’s deep pool of leadership potential, by giving people with an average of only a few hours a week to devote to service, an opportunity to exercise their talents and ideas to improve their community and state.  We are recruiting people in towns across New Jersey for these important opportunities to serve by educating them about the best ways to access these entry level volunteer leadership positions. We are also working to create the infrastructure to support such a “Call” through model reforms and collaborative education with the governing body and civic-minded organizations.

A full-scale “Call to Service” in a municpality (town/township/city) would include:1. Adoption of the Citizen Service Act, which creates a public directory of all appointed municipal boards & commissions with vacancies noted, and establishes an open application process for interested persons.

 


2. Leadership Forums held throughout the community, facilitated by the Citizens’ Campaign ACE Teacher Corps & its on-line education offerings.  These Forums
include advanced courses on each of our 4 Paths to Service, which allow people to exercise leadership and shape their community’s and state’s future.  These Paths to Service are: 1) serving on an appointed state or local government board or commission; 2) serving as a neighborhood-level party committee person; 3) becoming a citizen legislator by devising a constructive common interest proposal and presenting it to the relevant government body; & 4) serving in the increasingly important area of emergency response or public safety as a trained member of a first aid squad or an auxiliary police, to name two examples.


3. Adoption of a Citizen Service Day resolution, which (a) establishes an annual celebration of the town’s exemplary volunteer leaders, (b) extends an invitation from the mayor to new residents, as well as the general public to apply for leadership service opportunities in their town, (c) offers free town-wide ACE leadership forums.