Without AmeriCorps rural communities will lose essential social services
On April 25, Sorrell Redford, education director for Montezuma School to Farm Project, heard that their AmeriCorps funding through Serve Colorado would run out following abrupt cuts from the federal government. The agency bought themselves a few extra days by cobbling together two weeks-worth of funds to help ease the transition and possibly, to tide them over until a court reversal.
Near the end of April, the Department of Government Efficiency cut over 1,000 AmeriCorps grants totalling nearly $400 million across the United States. Many of these programs provided pivotal social services for rural communities that do not have the resources to fill these gaps without federal funding.
In Cortez, Colorado, Montezuma School to Farm Project depends on AmeriCorps members to keep the organization going. The nonprofit teaches garden classes in local public schools and also grows food for the food pantry, Good Samaritans. Redford said they have a goal to produce 6,000 pounds of food this year.
Redford said the organization only pays $300 for each AmeriCorps member right now and the government subsidizes the rest. “Without that, we could not afford to employ them,” she said. She hopes that they will be able to pay for their current members until the end of their terms in July, but it will cost the organization an extra $5,300 a month—a lot for a small nonprofit.
On April 29, 24 states and the District of Columbia, including Colorado and Kentucky, filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration’s cuts to AmeriCorps funding, calling it unconstitutional because it “usurps Congress’s power of the purse” and does not allow the agency to serve its mission and purpose.
While Redford hopes the lawsuit will restore funding for their programs, it could come too late for both the current members and next year’s AmeriCorps members, who would start in August. Redford has already made an offer to a member for next year but now that is up in the air. Without AmeriCorps starting in late summer, the harvest season will fall entirely to Redford, currently Montezuma School to Farm Project’s only full-time employee.
“There’s a whole trickle down effect, if we can’t grow the food, we can’t get it to the food bank, they won’t have fresh food to give out,” Redford said. The pantry is already hurting due to USDA grant cuts that fund local purchases for food pantries and schools. The AmeriCorps also work as volunteers in the pantry distributing food. Adding insult to injury, AmeriCorps’ absence in Montezuma would halt garden classes, hurting both teachers and students.
In Colorado, 27 out of 37 AmeriCorps programs were cut, said Colorado Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera. Seventeen of those were in rural areas. Serve Colorado, the state agency that manages Colorado AmeriCorps, is under the office of the lieutenant governor. Primavera said that Colorado lost about $12 million of funding for rural areas alone.
“AmeriCorps members’ service is the only support system in many rural towns, so losing these programs isn’t just a budget issue, it’s a community resilience issue,” Primavera said in an interview with The Daily Yonder.
Primavera emphasized that AmeriCorps is a workforce development program—many AmeriCorps members go on to become teachers, mental health professionals, firefighters and other vital community professions, based on their experiences in AmeriCorps.
“This isn’t a time to cut AmeriCorps. It’s a time really, to double down on services, not dismantle it,” said Primavera.
History of AmeriCorps
AmeriCorps programs have been around, under various names, since the 1960s, when the Volunteers in Service to America, or VISTA, program was established as part of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Even before that, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. It was later used as a model for conservation corps programs that still exist today, many of which are funded through AmeriCorps grants.
While AmeriCorps does operate some direct programs like the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), most of the funding through the program goes directly to city and county governments, nonprofits, and other organizations doing work on the ground in communities.
Service members receive a small stipend for their service term which can last from a few months to over a year. At the end of the term, members are eligible to receive an education award of around $7,000 that can be applied toward future education opportunities or toward student loans. For any AmeriCorps member affected by grant cuts, education awards stopped accruing and will be prorated as of April 25, 2025, violating contracts signed by these members at the beginning of their service terms.
Eastern Kentucky
On April 26, Josh Mullins received a call from Serve Kentucky that Hindman Settlement School’s AmeriCorps funding—over a million dollars—had been cut by the Trump Administration.
Hindman Settlement School in Eastern Kentucky had two AmeriCorps grants to fund 52 service members across five different counties in seven school districts, providing math and reading tutoring for K-3rd grade students.
Mullins, the director of operations for Hindman Settlement School, said that the organization had been an AmeriCorps grantee for the past five years and they shouldn’t have had to reapply for funding until next year for their ReadingCorps program, and two years from now for their Math Corps program.
“The school systems rely on these services to help their most at-risk students,” Mullins said in a Daily Yonder interview. “The schools do not have the staffing to provide one-on-one intervention,” he said. AmeriCorps members directly fill these gaps, providing tutoring to students falling behind in math and reading.
In Kentucky, 21 out of 28 AmeriCorps programs were cut—$9 million dollars of funding—affecting the service terms of 691 volunteers. While called volunteers, AmeriCorps members are full-time (sometimes more than full time) employees, and for many, it is their primary employment, despite being paid a near-poverty-wage stipend.
Mullins said that Hindman Settlement School is committed to funding their service members until the end of their terms in July. They are currently fundraising to fill the gap left by the AmeriCorps funding cuts.
“If we don’t win the lawsuit, everything will stop immediately. There’ll be some not for profits, that will have to shut their doors,” said Lt. Gov. Primavera.
This story was produced by The Daily Yonder and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
