University of Texas at Austin AmeriCorps Program Joins Groups in Day of Service to Austin

Event: The AmeriCorps program at The University of Texas at Austin, AmeriCorps for Community Engagement and Education (ACEE), will join other Austin-area AmeriCorps groups for the third annual Austin AmeriCorps Awareness Day. More than 300 Austin AmeriCorps members will perform service projects to beautify downtown Austin—including helping to clean up the music district after the South By Southwest Music Conference. Rosa Moreno-Mahoney, an ACEE alumnus and associate director of programs and training at the OneStar Foundation, which oversees AmeriCorps programs across Texas, will keynote the Kick Off Rally. The recognition ceremony is open to the media and the public.

When: 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Saturday, March 24.

Where: Participants will gather at the Austin City Hall Plaza, 301 W. Second St., at 8 a.m. The recognition ceremony and kick-off will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. Participants will be engaged in service projects around downtown Austin from 9 a.m. to noon and will regroup at noon at Republic Square Park, 422 Guadalupe St., for lunch.

Background: The University of Texas at Austin is home to a nationally recognized AmeriCorps program, AmeriCorps for Community Engagement and Education (ACEE), which is a program of the Charles A. Dana Center in the College of Natural Sciences. Since 1994 ACEE has involved more than 450 young men and women—including more than 240 University of Texas at Austin students—in research-based literacy support for young struggling readers in 11 low-income schools in the Austin Independent School District.

ACEE works with 1,870 children in six low-income AISD elementary schools and is a partner with AISD in helping to accelerate young children’s reading. Each year an average of 75 percent of the children ACEE works with reach or exceed grade-level criteria in reading by the end of the year.
For more information, visit: www.utdanacenter.org/acee.