Long promised by Moore, state's service year option program starts off with launch event

Full circle moments were aplenty for Maryland’s grieving governor and the state which he’s leading in the effort to make service stick during the launch event for a new program on Friday.

“You have no idea how you have just filled my heart,” Gov. Wes Moore told the approximately 280 members of the new Service Year Option program and rejuvenated Maryland Corps program, who filled a packed armory gymnasium at the University of Maryland, College Park to commemorate the start of their service term. The governor went on to reference his attendance earlier in the day at the funeral of a slain Washington County judge.

During a roundtable discussion with several participants after the public event, Moore met Washington County resident Christopher Keane, who is completing the new program by serving at Horizon Goodwill in Hagerstown. Earlier in the week, Keane started the program there, in the city 90 minutes away from the College Park campus, where Moore had returned from hardly hours before the program’s launch event.

“Instantly I was handing out food to people,” Keane, a high school graduate, told the governor. “Nothing is better than putting a smile on someone’s face.”

The state’s chief executive, who campaigned on the service year option program, laughed alongside Keane as the young man recounted an early promotion of sorts, from “banana duty,” handing out fruit, to distributing Chick-fil-a sandwiches during his first day on site on Wednesday.

In a small room on campus with a handful of other participants, the governor listened intently to Keane as the participant spent a couple minutes outlining various projects at the Hagerstown site, before the governor asked: “Why did you choose service?”

More: 'Maryland is leading the nation': Call to serve gets 500 applications for upcoming program

'It inspires me to keep doing more.'

For at least a couple of program participants, the answer to that question was, in part, familial.

“My mom told me to apply,” Charles Richardson Jr. 19, of Prince George’s County, said during a news conference held outside the cheerleader-surrounded armory before the event began.

Richardson, a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps member in high school, is set to do his service working with veterans through a program based on the College Park campus.

For Briana Whitehurst, who introduced Moore on stage during the event that included music from the school band, familial influence also played a role in her applying to the program. The Baltimore-area teenager, who aspires to work in education, was emailed the application link by her grandmother.

She is set to do her service through Parks and People, a nonprofit working to improve Baltimore through greenspace and education.

State Sen. Mary Washington, D-Baltimore, who helped give the force of law to the idea that started the year as an executive order from Moore, stood outside the armory before the event. She described helping to start a program at the same nonprofit where Whitehurst will serve this year.

Asked about that full circle moment in an interview, Washington, a co-sponsor of the SERVE Act legislation, said: “It inspires me to keep doing more.”

More: Moore calls for gap service year after high school. What could it mean for Maryland?

‘You get to meet people from all different walks of life’

During his public remarks, the governor paid homage to the “service pioneers of AmeriCorps and Peace Corps,” two federal programs that focus on community service. Both the CEO of AmeriCorps, Michael Smith, and the governor’s Chief of Staff Fagan Harris, an AmeriCorps board member critical in helping to create the state's program, were in attendance at the event at the University of Maryland, returning from an event yesterday in Arkansas that commemorated 30 years of the national service program.

Secretary of the newly created state Department of Service and Civic Innovation Paul Monteiro, whose grandparents met during a Peace Corps experience after that program began in the 1960s, addressed the participants of the latest iteration of a service program. (The Service Year Option program for those recently finishing high school starts this year while Maryland Corps, a service program for adults of any age, started in 2016.)

Monteiro said during his public remarks that the programs “push back on the myth that our communities are hopelessly divided.”

More: Peace Corps ties inspire Maryland native tapped by Wes Moore as first secretary of service

Moore echoed that sentiment in a press conference after the public event, repeating a portion of a line he used when promoting the program earlier this year in Frederick at a service event before his inauguration, lauding the benefits of the program with regards to the geographic diversity of the state.

“This is a chance for our state to get to know each other again,” he said, “to serve together, to build together.”

He said the program was multiple times oversubscribed. There were more than 500 applications for the programs while the initial legislation created about 200 spots for the Service Year Option program's first year. Employers from participating organizations such as Baltimore Gas and Electric were on the college campus for the launch.

Whitehurst, who applied for the program after her grandmother’s direction, said during a news conference before the event that she didn’t know there was “so much talent in one state.”

“That’s the most intriguing part about this program,” she said, “you get to meet people from all different walks of life.” She called that “beautiful.”

More: On MLK Day, Moore promotes service year option, readies for governorship

Dwight A. Weingarten is an investigative reporter, covering the Maryland State House and state issues. He can be reached at dweingarten@gannett.com or on Twitter at @DwightWeingart2.

This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: Maryland's service year option program starts off with launch event