First, here is the official site:
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=go…
Like any new endeavor, this one is still evolving.
However, in working with youth, one of the great lacks in modern life is real work, and a chance to serve others.
This just may help develope a healthy work ethic, a sense of community, and counter the mindless narcissim from the main stream media.
While only time will tell if this works, the structure is NOT a campaign organization. It IS a chance to serve.
Please share widely!
Sponsors of Commonwealth Corps volunteers are the real heros here. A sponsor's job demands a lot of organizational resources and energy, never mind the commitment to come up with solid community building projects with short and long term measurable positive outcomes.
From the site
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p>So nonprofits should start kissing the corner office’s ass like never before. Beg the Governor for these resources where before it would be line items in the budget.
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p>Alot of false huslte is going on here and a shell game.
The Peace Corp gives specifics on its web page.
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p>The governor is moving shells of non-profits and grant money to make himself look like a gubernatorial JFK.
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p>This is a false hustle flowery program for white suburban upper middle class kids who can “afford” to do this. Good for the resume. Good for the soul. But in the end it just is same stuff under different name. Oh, and all the volunteers will be told over and over again how great they are, how great the Commonwealth Corp is, and most importantly how great Deval is for coming up with this unique and awesome shell game. I mean program.
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p>Too bad for the non-profit employee who has been getting paid real wages to work full time doing some of this work. His budget is now cut so as to support non-experienced, volunteer, obnoxious college kids (all college kids are obnoxious more or less)
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p>Don’t insult those who went to third world countries for two years as Peace Corp volunteers by comparing this program to that program.
Take a look at the top left corner of Boston.Com. There you will see an ad for Commonwealth Corp.
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p>Glad our tax dollars are paying tribute to the Globe.
Like the lottery and universal health care.
Could it be the usual, “no good deed goes unpunished” – I truly do not get your rancor, anger, and attacks on this program, at all.
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p>This is a good idea, with the ability to recuit and sustain worth while citizen acitivism on the local level.
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p>Rather then name calling, “sour grapes” and class venom [where the attack on teens who happen to be born to one family rather than another come from, other than class hatred by you?]??
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p>I am more and more certain that you, personally, are full of anger at some failure or rejection of your own, and that your posts appearl to have no heft, but much rage.
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p>so yyu admit the volunters will mostly be white teens fro well-to-do faimilies who can afford to ‘volunteer’ to do -what exactlyt will they be doing that will make a poor black kid’s life better? Why won’t the poor black be a volunteer?
The three most recent recommendations from me were for minority teens, from families qualifying for MassHealth!!srom
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p>I know this akes you feel good about yourself but these kids can voluinteer anywhere. They don’t need your white guilt reccomendation.
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p>they need a futuure.
Just to set the record straight [and you really should use spell check]:
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p>1. I am multi-ethnic. Some would call me oriental, some a mutt, all depends how much you care about percentages. In some places, one or two nonwhite genes, and you are not white. Having grown up down the street from a swimming pool, public, with a sign that said, “No jews, negros, or orientals” been there, done that. No, I could not use the pool. I remember looking in the fence at age eight.
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p>2. I don’t feel guilty at all. Having been homeless, hitch hiked across the country, and worked factory jobs and more, I know that all good experiences, with the right kind of feedback ultimately make a difference. I sure remember who, what, and when that difference was made for ME.
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p>3. I have no ability to “get jobs”. I admit I have recommended young folk in need of a job to various small business people I know, who trust my word – and they were hired. But these are one and two at a time; I do watch and recommend carefully. I, myself, have no employees at all. I don’t earn enough doing what I do, the way I do it, to be able to pay anyone.
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p>wow, you are just a saint. so you are ore of a zealous advocate then other lawyers?
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p>or just a bad lawyer/
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p>your defense of Jim Marzilli was lousy – ‘his wife is gorgeous judge so why would he go after this dog’
…or guar4ian ad litem work. What would you know, given your steady state paycheck, anyway, about indigent defense as an indepedent contractor? Or name calling rather than thinking. tsk tsk.
and many, I mean most do. How many duty days do you have a month Amber? What courts. Superior Court?
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p>Bar Advocates got the increase that you personally lobbied for Amber. You still get to have private clients. And most bar advocates do. How dare you cry poor mouth and act like you are a ‘volunteer’.
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p>You are a fraud if you ask me. You shoud be coming close to $100,000.00 a year without trying.
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p>and don’t dive me over head bull crap. You can be a bar advocate with a home office.
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p>Sweetie you have no idea what I have done and not done.
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p>So Please. Don’t shit a shitter.
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p>NOTE: bar advocates are the attorneys for the indigent. Public Defenders.
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p>CPCS IS TOO. But different.
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p>2. I did not “lobby” as I was not paid one dime, nor did I even get reimbursed for parking!
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p>3. No “bar advocate” except the “murderlist” panel which I assure you I am NOT on “makes” $90,000 – do you know why? Let me tell you why: 1. court appointed attorneys, sometimes called bar advocates pay their own rent, their own internet, etc. IF a bar advocate were to work the maximum allowed billable hours without such an advocate [I am told about 180 do out of the 2846 attorneys out of the 2800 attorneys on the 12 panels] then you net [you DO know the difference between “net” and “gross”, right?] about $50,000.00 for working 50 weeks with no paid sick time, no benefits, no pension, and no job security.
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p>I do not have ANY duty days a year. Anywhere. Ever
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p>I get asked to represent children taken from their parents, teens who have been thrown on the street and are in need of services and sometimes a mother or a father desperate to regain custody.
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p>About 60% of the work I do on these child welfare cases is paid for. For example, of a family loses a a child due to homelessness [yes, it happens, Sweetie] – and I go into Superior Court to do a TRO to keep them in housing and do the Housing Court peice – I am not paid one cent. But I do what my appointed clients need, just as I do for my private clients.
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p>My private practice in family law pre-existed my determination to gain certification and fight DSS by 12 or so years. DSS intervened in a divorce case; I saw how arrogant they were, and added child welfare work to what I do.
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p>Some court appointed attorneys only represent the mentally ill, and protect them against undue medication. Did you know that, either?
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p>I am not “crying poor” but I assure you, I am not getting rich either. I net on average about what a teacher does after 12-15 years.
back up your argument with facts?
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p>Be Gone Woman.
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p>You Do Not Belong Here At BMG.
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p>Facts Get in the Way.
I also receive and read the minutes. I know my numbers. And you know what? Your negative,venomous comments demonstrate ignorance.
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p>2. I did not “lobby” as I was not paid one dime, nor did I even get reimbursed for parking!
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p>3. No “bar advocate” except the “murderlist” panel which I assure you I am NOT on “makes” $90,000 – do you know why? Let me tell you why: 1. court appointed attorneys, sometimes called bar advocates pay their own rent, their own internet, etc. IF a bar advocate were to work the maximum allowed billable hours without such an advocate [I am told about 180 do out of the 2846 attorneys out of the 2800 attorneys on the 12 panels] then you net [you DO know the difference between “net” and “gross”, right?] about $50,000.00 for working 50 weeks with no paid sick time, no benefits, no pension, and no job security.
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p>I do not have ANY duty days a year. Anywhere. Ever
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p>I get asked to represent children taken from their parents, teens who have been thrown on the street and are in need of services and sometimes a mother or a father desperate to regain custody.
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p>About 60% of the work I do on these child welfare cases is paid for. For example, of a family loses a a child due to homelessness [yes, it happens, Sweetie] – and I go into Superior Court to do a TRO to keep them in housing and do the Housing Court peice – I am not paid one cent. But I do what my appointed clients need, just as I do for my private clients.
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p>My private practice in family law pre-existed my determination to gain certification and fight DSS by 12 or so years. DSS intervened in a divorce case; I saw how arrogant they were, and added child welfare work to what I do. See: http://www.publiccounsel.net/p…
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p>Some court appointed attorneys only represent the mentally ill, and protect them against undue medication. Did you know that, either?
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p>I am not “crying poor” but I assure you, I am not getting rich either. I net on average about what a teacher does after 12-15 years.
who am I Amber? Expose me then.
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p>You are paid by the state. That we know.
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p>Fraud
Not sure if I spelled that right.
Lot’s of graduates in my class headed for the Peace Corps, built some bridges, drilled a well or two and rode around on the dunes in Liberia, while others in the class started some businesses and contributed millions to charity.
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p>Lot to be said for that latter group and a case to be made that the most philanthropic act you can undertake is to seek out the highest dollars per hour for yourself. Then, give them away.
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p>The feel good employment with Commonwealth Corp, Job Corp, Vista….where someone makes $10K to pick up litter in Roxbury suffers by comparison if that same guy took a job paying the most he could demand, then gave the excess over $10K to a well run charity.
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p>Just like the Thanksgiving volunteers who want to stand on the serving line. The guy behind the scenes who gave the $5K check gets little of the credit but did most of the good.
..and it’s called VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America).
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p>But why would we bother with a boring existing program when we can create a spandy new one and hire a lot of ‘in-tune’ people to administer it? Not that they’d ever be campaign workers or anything…
In May, 2008.
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p>This time next year, a few weeks after they resign from government to spend more time with their families, THEN they’ll be campiagn workers.
Under the current administration VISTA is a rather limited program providing service to poverty area only. Certainly these are the ones with the greatest needs but not the only area with need so it seems likely that Commonwealth corp will fill a void. The Peace corp is only outside of the USA so it may not be a service that can easily be transformed into service here in the USA. Certainly not with the BUSH / Cheney budget priorities. So your rants and putdowns are just premature and your facts about this is a replacement program or a duplicate is just inaccurate again.
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p>For Ernie the record of facts VISTA was started under LBJ not Kennedy that was the overseas Peace Corp which Sargent Shriver started under the Kennedy admistration
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p>i never said anything different..
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p>Ed Quinn, the man who calls forced busing in Boston a ‘necessary evil’.
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p>Thanks ed, as long as they are not your kids being used for a necessary evil.
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p>jerk
I bet that the people in charge of this program have an ideal persona they want in commonwealth corps. Let me guess, skinny, infeminate males with thick rimmed glasses who listens to Weezer, went to a $50,000 a year college, did crew, is originally from California and has a trustfund. No one with accents, working class background and state school grads need apply as well as Mass natives. We need to make an ideal world, and hat ideal world means doing away with people we don’t like because their not as hip and open minded as us.