The Service News Digest is a regular feature on the Serve.gov blog. In this series, we showcase articles that feature national service and Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) programs. Take a look at some of the great stories that had people talking recently.

AmeriCorps

Detroit urban safety group board up vacant and crime-ridden Midtown house
M Live (Michigan), Feb. 18, 2013
AmeriCorps Urban Safety Project and Wayne State Center for Urban Studies boarded up 480 Martin Luther King Drive, a vacant and abandoned house in Midtown and the blighted property surrounding it, Friday. Read more>>

Finding yesterday: Lewisburg Black History Month exhibit acknowledges historic contributions
Register Herald (West Virginia), Feb. 13, 2013
AmeriCorps Appalachian Forest Heritage Area (AFHA) is a regional initiative to promote heritage tourism and education based on forest heritage. The AFHA AmeriCorps members work on a variety of community projects relating to heritage development, conservation and historic preservation. Read more>>

The WASH Project: Buffalo, NY
Buffalo Rising (New York), Feb. 12, 2013
Enter the WASH Project (Westside Art Strategy Happenings) at Westside Value Laundromat -- funded by grants from theBelle Center and Buffalo AmeriCorps, along with community-driven help byHoughton College. The laundromat is now a place where people can come to play music, practice art, read books, learn languages, mingle with people from other cultures, and learn abouta wide range of community services and cultural opportunities. Read more>>

Cape power crews making progress
Cape Cod Times (Massachusetts), Feb. 12, 2013
AmeriCorps member Jason Ross of Columbus, Ohio, looked over the shoulder of about a half-dozen other AmeriCorps volunteers from Maryland, Washington, D.C., Buffalo, and Wisconsin taking calls from towns and local emergency operation centers, logging the information and monitoring an online database connected to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. Read more>>

Seacoast group shares love of robots
Fosters.com (Maine/New Hampshire), Feb. 11, 2013
For the past five months, local resident and AmeriCorps VISTA member Lindsey Wright has been organizing informal gatherings every month to build a supportive community around educational robotics programs. Read more>>

Senior Corps

United Way of North Central Florida engages seniors in community service
The Gainesville Sun (Florida), Feb. 17, 2013
United Way of North Central Florida has received a three-year national grant through the Corporation for National and Community Service to engage 300 seniors in measurable and outcome-based volunteer opportunities throughout Alachua County. Read more>>

Volunteering can be fun, has additional benefits
Casa Grande Dispatch (Arizona), Feb. 7, 2013
John Urbigkit earned a Purple Heart for his service in the Korean War. But the military veteran and retired chemist recently received another honor: a Jefferson Award for Public Service for his Senior Corps volunteer work as a foster grandparent and science tutor. Read more>>

Social Innovation Fund

Time for a Smarter Conversation
The Huffington Post- Impact, Feb. 12, 2013
The Social Innovation Fund and the i3 Fund set a new way to do business, investing in what works. That means providing money to organizations that have proven results and helping scale their impact. The Social Innovation Fund (SIF) provided more than money, it represented a wholesale change in the role of government in social policy -- moving it away from provider of assistance to catalyst of change. The SIF focused on scaling impact and measuring the outcomes, which encouraged a focus on results. Read more>>