Youth Service America

One of the reasons we expanded the celebration of Global Youth Service Day into Youth Service Month (April 11 - May 11, 2025) is because there are so many service events that take place in April and early May. While we've always said that people could celebrate any of these events and GYSD together with a single project/activity, we've officially extended the celebration to a full month to include all of our partners' amazing events.

YSA Day of Service Lead Agency

Our primary role as a Lead Agency is to convene a partner coalition that will collaborate to collectively activate youth – especially those in middle and high school and in under-served communities who aren’t usually asked to participate.

Lead Agencies convene partner coalitions of:

K-12 schools, colleges and universities

Youth development, afterschool, and extracurricular programs;

Community and faith-based organizations, government agencies, national service programs, volunteer centers, etc.

Lead Agencies are a vital part of increasing youth participation in their communities by engaging youth as volunteers for the first time on national days of service.

YSA Days of Service Volunteer

In addition to the usual service projects and celebration events, we’re encouraging young people to become activists and advocates to address root causes of problems through policy change and challenging everyone to help renew the spirit of democracy and citizenship that’s under threat around the world. Together, we can crack the atom of youth civic power.

Volunteering and service are more important during a crisis than ever.

Days of Service

9/11/2025 MLK Day 1/19/2026 Global Youth Service Days 4/24th, 25th, 26th 2026

September 11th is the Anniversary of that tragic day. Join us on 9/11 Day of Service - step forward to serve in a remarkable spirit of unity, honor, and compassion. Remember, even a small act of service is a giant act of patriotism.

The MLK Day of Service is observed as a "day on, not a day off." MLK Day of Service is intended to empower individuals, strengthen communities, bridge barriers, create solutions to social problems, and move us closer to Dr. King’s vision of a "Beloved Community."

Global Youth Service Day is the largest youth service and civic action event in the world and the only one that celebrates and builds the capacity of all youth ages 5-25 to help our communities and democracy thrive by working together for the common good.

Volunteerism for these days may include orientation and training sessions prior to the actual day of service.

Youth-Led Participatory Action Research In YPAR projects, youth organizers identify an area of concern, gather data about it, and then make recommendations for improvement and develop a service project.

Students in 6th -12th grade are eligible to join the Community Youth Councils. Educators, clergy and business owners can recommend a student to participate by completing and submitting a recommendation form. Download the recommendation form

High School students may apply to join the Youth Advisory Board. Download the application.

Planning Meetings

High school youth form the planning committee and can join our National Youth Advisory Board (YAB). The YAB is composed of high school students who have demonstrated leadership skills and service in their school and community, as well as having experience and service with any youth leadership program.

Planning meetings are usually held virtually. However, in-person meetings may be scheduled prior to the actual day of service.

Community Partner,

A Work of Faith Ministries is glad to offer a partnership proposal to your organization. We are one of the grantees recognized as a Lead Agency with Youth Services America. Our companies share a mission in the NFP industry and we believe that this joint venture will be beneficial to our companies.

Our Youth Leadership & Development team wants to partner with your company. AWOFINC has a responsibility of recruiting organizations working with youth ages 5 - 25 to complete service projects with our teams for our MLK Day of Service. We appreciate your mission to expand your outreach in your community. We have business strongholds in these regions and our partnership would help each of our organizations to expand.

Additionally, we are looking for a partner who works with families and this partnership can benefit both companies. With the new branding, our joint venture will contribute to building more programs, expand the program outreach and promote marketing of initiatives from both organizations.

The partnership would require you to commit to recruiting between 150 and 200 youth for this service project partnership. Your organization will be invited to our upcoming virtual planning meeting. We want your youth workers, the youth ages 5-25 and their parents (optional) to attend. We are looking forward to welcoming your youth leadership team as our new YSA MLK Day of Service partner.

D'Aaliyah Fountain Sinchana Suresh Babu Yujie Xi

Program Director Community Outreach Coordinator Executive Intern

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