RFK

This sure is nice. From the Times earlier this week:

Barack Obama is calling for a national day of service to take place on Jan. 19, the federal holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and the day preceding Mr. Obama’s inauguration as president.

[...]

The Presidential Inaugural Committee is putting the wheels for the project in motion with calls and e-mails to national service organizations. The committee is reaching out to organizations of all sizes and ideologies, including faith-based groups, unions and businesses as well as political groups — from Moveon.org on the left to Focus on the Family on the right — to motivate their members to participate.

“While government has an important role to play in helping rekindle our economy and addressing the problems of a distressed nation, President-elect Obama believes each of us, as Americans, have a responsibility to do what we can for our communities and fellow citizens,” said the e-mail, which was signed by the five co-chairmen of the committee.

The e-mail also suggested that the day of service would be the beginning of a larger effort.

“Unlike past calls to service, President-elect Obama will ask Americans to do more than just offer a single day of service to their cities, towns and neighborhoods,” the e-mail said. “He will ask all of us to make an ongoing commitment to our communities. Never has it been more important to come together in shared purpose to tackle the common challenges we face.”

It's encouraging to see Obama put actions behind his rhetoric, and it gives us a sneak preview of the consequences of putting a community organizer in the White House.

I'm interested to see if we might be able to incorporate some kind of Twitter dimension behind this effort. For example, those that are able to serve and bring a mobile device with a data plan can tweet their experiences for others to see. Talk about visualizing the movement -- the "ripples of hope" Kennedy talked about would be on a computer screen.