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MLB.com

Press Release

05/05/2011 5:02 PM ET
Major League players and Volunteers of America promote service learning through new PSA campaign
Carlos Pena, Chris B. Young, Michael Young and Dallas/Ft. Worth-area high school students join forces to promote youth volunteerism
MLBPA Press Release

NEW YORK -- Major League baseball players and Volunteers of America are supporting their ongoing efforts to help train and inspire the next generation of volunteers by launching a new radio and TV public service campaign titled “Are You In?”. The spots were created to encourage high school students to volunteer through the Action Team® (www.ActionTeam.org) national youth volunteer program administered by the Players Trust and Volunteers of America.

The spots were recorded on the campus of North Dallas High School in early January 2011 and feature Carlos Pena (Cubs), Chris B. Young (Diamondbacks), Michael Young (Rangers) and more than 30 high school students from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area -- most of them members of the Action Team program.

Launched in Denver in 2003, the Action Team now enjoys the support of more than 160 high schools in 33 states and Puerto Rico. Since its inception, the Action Team has inspired more than 26,000 high school students to help over 111,000 people in need. In 2010-11, more than 800 Action Team captains have planned more than 400 volunteer projects in their communities.

The Action Team program is offered free to participating high schools. Action Team participants receive exclusive access to monthly telephone conference calls featuring Major Leaguers, unique service-learning project ideas, promotional DVDs and posters, T-shirts, certificates of achievement signed by Major Leaguers and scholarship opportunities provided by the Players Trust.

Additionally, the Players Trust publishes an award-winning, Action Team-based service-learning curriculum in The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition that reaches more than 1 million high school students in 5,000 classrooms each month. The Players Trust and Volunteers of America recently partnered with Learn360, an interactive media-on-demand service for the K-12 education market, and will soon offer one-of-a-kind, service-learning content across all core curriculum areas to strengthen and reinforce connections between service activity topics and core subjects.

Click here to watch the “Are You In?” PSAs.

Click here to listen to the “Are You In” radio spots.

For more information please visit http://mlbplayers.mlb.com/pa/trust/action.jsp and www.ActionTeam.org. To request copies of the PSAs, please email the Action Team at ActionTeam@mlbpa.org.