I Heart Alma Powell: America's Promise Co-Chair Champions Service-Learning

Mrs. Alma Powell, co-chair of the America's Promise Alliance, spoke Friday morning in support of service-learning at the ServiceNation Summit. Mrs. Powell was the first to speak on a panel about service and education, which featured an all-star line-up: Wendy Kopp of Teach for America, Chancellor Klein from New York City Public Schools, Michael Brown of City Year (one of my national service heroes), and a terrific student leader from a Citizen Schools program in Texas.

Mrs. Powell makes an excellent case for why service-learning "is not a nice thing to do. It is necessary." She gave a fantastic overview of America Promise's new strategic initiative, Ready for the Real World (if you don't know much about it, check it out).

This week, Mrs. Powell wrote an opinion-editorial titled Education through Service, in which she reinforces her pitch for service-learning.

Check out this clip of Mrs. Powell's remarks during the education panel at ServiceNation. Apologies for the terrible camera work. That's the danger of the digital age. Give a girl a camera phone, and she thinks she can be Steven Spielberg (smile).

Enjoy. More service-learning sights and sounds from ServiceNation coming soon.