MAY 5 IS JOIN HANDS HAND. Please check out http://www.joinhandsday.org/scripts/home.cfm
Feel free to sign up for a project.
Thanks. Joe Ross, BLM, Roseburg, Oregon

JOIN HANDS DAY is the only national day of service that specifically targets and develops relationships between young people and adults through neighborhood volunteering. Young people and adults work together on an equal basis to plan, organize and implement the day's activities.

Today, the separation between the ages is more predominant than ever before. The old are isolated from the young and lack opportunities for building cross-generational relationships in their day-to-day lives. Young children are placed in age-segregated child care and pre-school settings. Most adults work in environments without children or adults past age 65. Older adults move into age-segregated housing. Those in the same household watch television in different rooms. People become comfortable with their peers, and only their peers.

JOIN HANDS DAY brings young people and adults together, and begins the process of developing understanding and trust across the generations. It is a day to begin a year round process of relationship building.

JOIN HANDS DAY will measurably increase understanding and rapport between a growing number of young people and adults who participate in the day's local projects, and other activities and events that follow.

JOIN HANDS DAY will be known and practiced by a variety of groups, organizations, and businesses in every community in America. Young people and adults will replace false impressions and stereotypes with the truth about each other. Together, they will build a community of support for healthy cross-generational relationships. This will improve life in neighborhoods, and increase optimism about the future.

America’s Fraternal Benefit Societies are the sponsors of JOIN HANDS DAY. Fraternal benefit societies began nearly 150 years ago, and today have 10 million members in 36,000 local chapters. These not-for-profit organizations improve their communities through volunteer service and charitable outreach, while helping their members achieve financial security through insurance and retirement products. Fraternalists “JOIN HANDS” year-round, because fraternalism is not a one-day-a-year event. However, JOIN HANDS DAY provides all fraternalists and non-fraternalists alike with the opportunity to make a difference in their neighborhoods through helpful projects that connect youths and adults.

JOIN HANDS DAY is open to everyone. Even though America’s Fraternal Benefit Society chapters form a strong foundation of participants, other volunteers come from civic organizations, nonprofits, government agencies, faith groups, youth clubs, schools and more. Youth groups find adult organizations, and adult organizations find youth groups to develop a partnership for the day and develop new friendships.

National organizations that have promoted JOIN HANDS DAY to their members include: the American Red Cross, Civil Air Patrol, Family Career and Community Leaders of America, the National FFA Organization, Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Host America, Salvation Army and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

JOIN HANDS DAY is a program of the National Fraternal Congress of America (NFCA), a Connect America partner. The 121-year-old NFCA unites the 76 not-for-profit America’s Fraternal Benefit Societies that operate in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Canada.

i am with u !!!!