Source: United States Senator for Delaware Christopher Coons
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), co-chair of the National Service Congressional Caucus, released the following statement on the confirmation of Michael Smith to be Chief Executive Officer of AmeriCorps, the national service agency formally known as the Corporation for National and Community Service.
“As AmeriCorps members continue their remarkable work to help communities rebuild from this pandemic, I’m pleased to see Michael Smith take the helm with bipartisan support in the Senate. Michael brings a strong record of innovation on national service programs, and I’m confident he’ll strengthen the diverse functions of AmeriCorps, including climate resilience, hunger relief, housing support, education, and public health. This is a transformational moment for AmeriCorps and its 270,000 members, and I am eager to see how Michael will guide the program into its next chapter. I look forward to working closely with him as he takes up that important task.”
Senator Coons has long championed national service. Prior to coming to Congress, he helped launch and lead an AmeriCorps program with the “I Have A Dream” Foundation. For nearly a decade, Senator Coons served on the Delaware State Service Commission and later, as New Castle County Executive, he helped create a program to recruit volunteer firefighters in his hometown. In Congress, Coons and Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) have built the largest bipartisan coalition in a decade for a bold expansion of AmeriCorps, with the introduction of the Cultivating Opportunity and Recovery from the Pandemic through Service (CORPS) Act.
In the American Rescue Plan, Senator Coons worked to secure $1 billion for AmeriCorps, nearly doubling the funding available to the agency to bolster its community-driven response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Senator Coons has also been among the leading voices calling for the creation of the Civilian Climate Corps and strengthening of national service programs through the Build Back Better Act.
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