National Service Agency Teams Up with Starbucks in Call for Million-Plus Hours of Service

Pledge 5 Hours for Your Community by Sunday and Get a Free Cup of Starbucks Coffee

Washington D.C. -- The Corporation for National and Community Service is joining Starbucks and HandsOn Network for the “I’m In!” campaign, an initiative to make it easy to participate in President Obama’s call for national service.

In participating Starbucks stores across the nation, the American public will have an opportunity to pledge five hours or more of community service toward a local volunteer opportunity of choice. Starbucks will honor each person who pledges with a free tall brewed coffee beginning Wednesday, Jan. 21 through Sunday, Jan. 25. The goal of the effort is to raise pledges in excess of one million hours of service from all over the country. Already more than 630,000 hours have been pledged. Make your pledge today by visiting pledge5.starbucks.com.

“Five hours is just 25 minutes a month for a year, two afternoons at a food bank creating care packages, a day reading to children at a hospital or in a park planting trees,” said Vivek Varma, senior vice president of Global Affairs, Starbucks Coffee Company. “We hope to help spark a new spirit of volunteerism by exceeding a million pledge hours and HandsOn Network is the perfect partner to allow our customers to join us in a renewed national commitment to community service.”

“HandsOn Network is excited to join forces with Starbucks. We have witnessed the partnerships between corporations and nonprofits grow more creative and this type of collaboration is a powerful way to reach scale and truly create a movement. Starbucks is the catalyst to reach millions of volunteers and HandsOn equips, activates and provides the much needed resources to help America fulfill the commitments made from this initiative,” said Michelle Nunn, chief executive officer. “HandsOn has over 270 HandsOn Action Centers located in the United States and works with over 31,000 nonprofit organizations. A quick online questionnaire can steer consumers toward a fulfilling volunteer opportunity.”

“In this time of economic distress, we need volunteers more than ever. We salute Starbucks for seizing this moment and furthering President Obama’s call to service,” said Nicola Goren, Acting CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. “On King Day, we saw an extraordinary demonstration of the power of volunteers to make change and bring people together. Our challenge now is to turn this momentum into sustained citizen action. Efforts like this will keep service and volunteering at the forefront and help unleash the energy and idealism of people across the nation.”

How to Participate at Your Local Starbucks

Visit Starbucks:

You can join the “I’m In” campaign, part of the Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ commitment to community involvement, when visiting a local participating Starbucks beginning Wednesday, Jan. 21 (and continuing through Sunday, Jan. 25). Stop by the “I’m In” display featuring community pledge cards, pick up the card, and fill it out with your five-hour commitment to volunteer.

Pledge Five:

Place the “I’m In” sticker from the pledge card on your lapel, signifying your pledge, and take the card with you as a reminder to keep the effort going. As a thank you, each customer who pledges five hours of their own time will receive a complimentary tall cup of brewed coffee.

Track Success:

Customers can log on to pledge5.starbucks.com to record pledge hours, find local volunteer opportunities via the HandsOn Network, track hours pledged-to-date, and receive updates on the campaign.