THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 21, 1994 TAG: 9406210547
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: 940621 LENGTH: WASHINGTON
Clinton's friend from Arkansas, Eli Segal, the national service czar, said Monday that 57 groups have just been awarded money to get ready to hire 7,000 students as of September. A year from now, 20,000 minimum-wage workers are expected to be at work in education, public safety, health and environmental cleanup and protection.
{REST} They'll do a range of work, from cleaning up the shoreline of Galveston Bay to providing clean tap water for Native Alaskan villages to installing energy-efficient lighting in Oregon schools.
The idea is that high school graduates who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents between the ages of 17 and about 25 will work for $4.25 an hour, or an average of about $8,000 for a year of work, with 80 percent of their salaries coming from the federal government.
After 12 months of work, at least 1,700 hours, they'll also get $4,725 for college tuition or to help pay off a college loan. They're eligible to earn two years' worth of tuition. The average student of a four-year institution graduates with a debt of $6,500, Segal said.
Recruiters have been out on college campuses touting the program, and national ads will run this summer.
The old VISTA program (Volunteers in Service to America, started in 1964) also will offer its 3,400 volunteers the same deal.
Of the list of projects announced by Segal on Monday, 15 Cabinet departments won grants to employ students, and 47 states and the District of Columbia will get the help of students either through public or private groups.
Returned Peace Corps volunteers will help bring basic health services to the working poor. In five cities, theater groups will teach AIDS prevention to children. Through Habitat for Humanity, students will build homes for hurricane victims in Florida.
``AmeriCorps is not going to solve the massive problems we confront,'' Segal said. ``It is going to make a difference. AmeriCorps is a delivery system. One year from today, with 20,000 (students) out there, communities around the United States will know it, see it and feel it.''
For more information on AmeriCorps, call 1-800-94-ACORPS.
{KEYWORDS} TUITION COLLEGE UNIVERSITY U.S. GOVERNMENT PROGRAM AMERICORPS by CNB