Justin Ellis is on vacation. While he's gone, we will be publishing with the help of "guest bloggers."

Today's guest writer is Jenna Vendil, 24, currently the Field Director for the League of Young Voters. Prior to this, she has spent the last several years working on housing, health care and racial justice issues with various non-profits in Maine. She is fascinated with cultural fads and social movements and wonders what her generation's legacy will be in history. She has her own blog that she should probably update more frequently:

While Justin is out catching up on some must-needed vacay and diving into leftovers of cranberry sauce and ham, I'll be filling in as a guest blogger today with some post-election reflection and opportunities.

Nothing has made me more excited than looking back and seeing how 2008 has really been the year for young people in our country. Beyond the presidential election, activists and organizers cultivated this youth movement over the last few years. It should be no surprise that amazing work is cropping up in neighborhoods and cities that work to improve the quality of life for young people. Here are a couple of highlights of projects that are happening locally and nationally that deserve some recognition. Even after November 4th, there's a lot of work that still needs to be done.

Opportunity Nation?

It seemed not too long ago when you couldn't avoid petitioners gathered outside of sporting events, coffee shops, shoe stores, even on street corners in the winter of 2006 for the Opportunity Maine initiative. The initiative was immediately appealing to young people and college students for its tax credits to help pay off student loans for students who live and work in Maine post-graduation. It was developed to help make college more affordable as well as boost Maine's economy in the process by preventing the "brain drain". The successful effort became law after an ambitious grassroots signature-gathering drive that led to over 72,000 signatures and passed through the state legislature in the spring of 2007.

Now the vision of Opportunity Maine is being pushed on a national level with "Opportunity Nation." The idea behind Opportunity Nation is to utilize existing New Deal Corps such as Americorps, Green Corps, Peace Corps, Medical and Teaching Corps, etc), in which people give an undetermined amount of years of national service in exchange for college loan forgiveness. Think military and the G.I. bill except giving back to your community.

Opportunity Nation is one of the many citizen ideas for public policy that could be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day that will be supported by a national lobbying campaign run by Change.org and dozens of national nonprofits. The catch is that Change.org is picking the top ten most popular ideas. You can choose by voting online.

Southern Maine Worker's Center/ROC-ME

You see us everywhere. Serving your martinis and PBRs, making your soy lattes for your hangover cure, checking you in the hotel$even at the new Apple store, where we are advising you about the hottest accessories for your new I-phone. Young people make up the majority of the service industry, whether it's restaurant, hospitality or retail. We are un-organized for the most part, and we probably don't know our rights when it comes to employment laws or tip structures. We probably get fired for absurd reasons that really aren't our fault.

Enter in the Southern Maine Workers' Center that works to educate and provide services for unorganized workers. Its major project is the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Maine, which works to improve working conditions for Maine's restaurant workers.

What sets the ROC-ME project apart is its multi-tiered focus for job training, research and policy, education and leadership. The job training classes can include bartending, fine dining server, or ESOL. The research arm of ROC is to develop a better understanding of what restaurant work is like in Maine through in-depth surveys with restaurant workers. The education and leadership component of ROC offers training on rights for restaurant employees.

Since September, ROC-ME has gone through two successful bartender training courses and is slated for more classes to begin after the new year. These courses usually get advertised on Craigslist or are spread by word of mouth. And they always fill up pretty quickly.

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