AmeriCorps Alums Names Shawn Rubin 2009 Eli J. Segal Award Winner

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Greg Heinrich

July 2, 2009 AmeriCorps Alums

404.979.2931

AmeriCorps Alums is proud to announce Shawn Rubin as the 2009 AmeriCorps Alums Eli J. Segal Entrepreneurship Award winner. He received the Eli Segal Award at the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service in San Francisco. The award was presented in front of more than 4,000 people who attended this year’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service in San Francisco on June 22, 2009, the world's largest gathering of volunteer and service leaders from the nonprofit, government and corporate sectors. The Eli J. Segal Award, named after the first CEO of the Corporation for National Service, is the highest and most prestigious honor awarded by AmeriCorps Alums.

Rubin, a teacher at Highlander Charter School, also received a $5,000 prize to assist with Longitude, the non-profit organization he founded in 2005. Rubin is an AmeriCorps alumnus who founded Longitude, a non-profit organization that aims to build grassroots initiatives for education and human rights in developing countries. He plans to use the $5,000 to develop Longitude’s volunteer network further through the creation of an interactive website where volunteers can track the work that needs doing, create their own fund raisers for Longitude’s partner projects, and access the marketing materials they will need to spread the word of Longitude. “AmeriCorps Alums is excited to announce Shawn as this year’s winner. His dedication and passion for service and volunteering, combined with his social entrepreneurial and impressive leadership talents, make him a choice that we feel best reflects the ideals and characteristics of the late Eli Segal,” said Amity Tripp, Executive Director of AmeriCorps Alums.

Rubin beat out more than 60 candidates for his work helping to launch the Highlander Charter School in 2000 while he was still an AmeriCorps member, and for founding Longitude, which grew out of an extended honeymoon where he and his wife volunteered at various non-profits in five countries. Longitude primarily assists two causes: a secretarial school in Ghana, and another organization that helped tsunami victims in India. It does so by connecting volunteers with citizen leaders in both Ghanaand India.

“This award is really about the volunteers, donors, and most importantly, the leaders who are creating change in their own countries,” said Rubin. “The recognition and award will help us continue to support individuals who have the vision and perseverance to lift up people in their own community.”

Since its inception, Longitude has sent more than 150 volunteers overseas. These volunteers have raised more than $100,000 for Longitude’s partner projects while Longitude has spent less than $2,000 on overhead expenses during its four years of existence. Last year, Longitude and the PROFESA secretarial school in Ghana were the subjects of a documentary entitled “Big World, Small World.”

About AmeriCorps Alums - AmeriCorps Alums is a leadership organization that connects, supports and mobilizes the vibrant network of 550,000 individuals who spent a year or more in service to our country through AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps Alums believes that the lifetime engagement of alumni is a transformational force for change in America’s communities. The mission is to fully realize the potential of national service alumni as leaders in communities by fostering the identity and pride in AmeriCorps service to country, engaging them locally as leaders in direct action and recognizing and empowering them as nation’s most prestigious civic leaders, such as through the Eli J Segal Award. For more information visit www.americorpsalums.org

About Longitude- Longitude is a Rhode Island based 501 (c)3 non-profit organization working with visionary leaders of grassroots educational and human rights initiatives in resource-poor countries. Currently Longitude aids a community secretarial school in Ghana, and a human rights organization inIndia that helps members of India’s lowest caste. To learn more about Longitude, visitwww.golongitude.org.