Last week was commemorated as National Volunteer Week by the Points of Light institute, an organization that promotes volunteerism and civic engagement. Both nationally and locally, volunteer-related developments made headlines. Bloomberg unveils new volunteer initiative At a rally in Washington Heights on Monday, April 20, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a new program, NYC Service, designed to encourage New...

An item in this morning’s Daily News says that the four New York schools participating in the Experience Corps program will likely lose city funding to renew it this year.  The program places people over age 55 in schools to tutor children with reading. Apparently private money has been hard to get as well, so the New York schools will probably lose their tutors soon. According to the Daily News article,...

If you ride a bicycle in the city but can’t afford to bring it to a bike shop for expensive repairs, you’re in luck. Time’s Up! will teach you how to fix your bike yourself. Mechanic Dustin Wade works on a bike at Time's Up!'s Brooklyn space. On March 1 the volunteer-run environmental action group opened a new space at 99 South Sixth St. in Williamsburg. Time’s Up! offers workshops...

Volunteerism is in the news, and we here at ChangesBrooklyn are validated that we recognized a trend. This weekend, the New York Times reported that numbers of volunteers are growing due to unemployment. In just the few stories we’ve reported so far for this blog, we’re seeing the same thing. The folks at the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service said that their ranks of volunteers now include a former...