THE SHRIVER CORPS

Inspired by The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, A Woman’s Nation is partnering with LIFT and the Corporation for National and Community Service to launch a new national service program, The Shriver Corps.

Over three years, twenty Shriver AmeriCorps VISTA fellows will serve full-time at LIFT sites in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, DC. Corps members will build on LIFT’s client-oriented model, training volunteers and designing programs that will connect low income Americans with local and national programs and services designed to put them on a path to financial security.

The Shriver Corps Fellows will work to further realize the vision of Maria Shriver’s father, Sargent Shriver, who ran the War on Poverty for LBJ. Shriver and his team imagined and implemented powerful programs like Head Start, Vista, Job Corps, Foster Grandparents, and Legal Services for the Poor. The Shriver Corps builds on the work Maria began as first lady of California, where she founded WeConnect, a public-private partnership now run by the California Endowment that works with organizations in underserved communities to connect families to resources — including the state’s Healthy Families Program, food stamps, energy assistance, and the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, which puts money back in their pockets —money they spend on their families, their bills, and out in their communities.

The Shriver Corps is, in effect, taking that idea national. The Shriver Corps is supported by a $1 million commitment from the Corporation for National and Community Service and a $500,000 launch grant from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation.