Former AmeriCorps service member Daniel Zare, 27, visits Project Change at Sligo Middle School on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025 in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he mentored students before federal government cuts in April. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Daniel Zare worked one-on-one as an AmeriCorps member with students going through rough times in school, lightening teachers’ workload in the classroom.

At AmeriCorps Project CHANGE, based in Silver Spring’s Sligo Middle School, Zare was one of several in his group who tracked adolescents’ emotional and social wellbeing over months using a system dubbed “My Score.” They then helped support the kids who were struggling the most.

In April, though, the program screeched to a halt. That’s when the Trump administration abruptly canceled nearly $400 million in active AmeriCorps grants across the United States that fund volunteers who embed in communities, in exchange for a small stipend and education award.

“All the work that we had culminating toward the end of the year, the relationships that we built with teachers and students and officials, it just completely went kaput because we were told we weren’t allowed to go to work at all,” Zare, 27, told States Newsroom.

Like so many longstanding federal programs and institutions severely reduced or dismantled as part of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency project, AmeriCorps — and its nonprofit partners — are now assessing the damage and seeking a way forward.

AmeriCorps programs that survived last spring’s DOGE cuts are slowly beginning a new year of service amid major uncertainty over whether they will be able to continue their work in classrooms, food banks, senior centers and other community hubs.

Winners and losers among states

AmeriCorps, a federal agency signed into law in 1993 by former President Bill Clinton, places roughly 200,000 members across the United States at 35,000 service locations, according to current agency data.

Members serve in schools, local governments and with a wide range of nonprofits that focus on health, disaster relief, environmental stewardship, workforce development and veterans.

The staffers, who pledge to “get things done for America,” are paid a modest living allowance that hovers around the poverty line. Some, but not all, can get health insurance while in the program.

Members who complete their service term, which usually lasts from 10 to 12 months, receive an education award that can be used to pursue a degree, earn a trade certificate or pay student loans.

AmeriCorps federal dollars reach programs via a couple routes. In many cases, grants flow from AmeriCorps to governor-led state and territorial commissions that divvy them up according to local priorities. In other cases, federal dollars flow straight to a program via a competitive grant process. 

Kaira Esgate, CEO of America’s Service Commissions, said when the Trump administration ordered the cuts in April, some states lost large portions of their AmeriCorps portfolio, while other states fared better.

“There were no real clear trend lines around what or who got terminated and why,” said Esgate, whose member organization represents all 49 state commissions (South Dakota doesn’t have one) and the commissions for the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico.

Abby Andre, executive director of The Impact Project, an initiative of Public Service Ventures Ltd., a private corporation that launches and scales solutions to strengthen public service and communities., has been collecting data and plotting on an interactive map where AmeriCorps programs have been canceled. Andre, a former Department of Justice litigator, has also worked with her team to build other maps showing where federal workforce cuts have been felt across the country.

“AmeriCorps is a really great example of the federal dollars being kind of invisible in communities. Communities often don’t know that a local food bank or a senior center are supported by AmeriCorps volunteers and AmeriCorps money,” said Andre, who taught administrative law at the Vermont Law School after working under President Barack Obama and in Trump’s first administration.

Andre said communities with a lack of social services, including in rural areas, will likely feel the biggest losses without an AmeriCorps presence because the agency “facilitates pennies-on-the-dollar type services through volunteer work.”

“It’s not as though if these community services folded, those communities would have the money to fund equal or better services through the private market,” she said.

Losing trust

The Maryland Governor’s Office on Service and Volunteerism gave the green light to Project CHANGE to keep its program, which serves Montgomery County in suburban Washington, D.C., running through the upcoming school year.

Paul Costello, director of Project CHANGE, is now scrambling to launch a new AmeriCorps cohort after receiving the news on July 22 that the initiative had been funded. He estimates members won’t be able to begin until almost a month into the school year.

“Sadly, AmeriCorps, as a brand name, is badly damaged, I think. I mean, I’ve got a meeting on Wednesday with a major partner who told us two weeks ago ‘We thought you were dead,’” Costello told States Newsroom in an Aug. 11 interview.

Costello’s program not only places service members in Montgomery County Public Schools, where Zare served, but also with partners including Community Bridges, Montgomery Housing Partnership and Family Learning Solutions.

The nonprofits respectively focus on helping adolescent girls from diverse backgrounds, children whose families live in community-developed affordable housing units and teens eyeing college and career paths.

The county’s school system is the largest in the state and serves a highly diverse population. About 44% of the system’s 160,000 students qualify for free and reduced meals, and close to 20% are learning English while continuing to speak another language at home.

Costello’s 18 cohort members embedded in those schools and nonprofits this past academic year were suddenly yanked in April when the government cut his grant. The partners, which had planned and budgeted to have the members through June, were thrown into “total chaos,” Costello said.

“So some of them are so desperate, they rely on their members. They had to dig into their pockets to keep them on as staff. And then we go back to them this year and say, ‘You want members this year?’ AmeriCorps has made no attempt to make them whole. So they’ve been screwed,” Costello said.

AmeriCorps did not respond to States Newsroom’s questions about nonprofits losing money.

Legal action

The federal courts granted some relief to members and organizations who abruptly lost living allowances and contractually obligated funding.

A Maryland federal district judge ordered in June that funding and positions  be restored in 24 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia that sued the agency.

Another district judge in the state also handed a win to more than a dozen nonprofits from across the country that sued to recover funding they were owed.

But for many it was too late, and AmeriCorps’ future still feels shaky.

After suddenly losing his living allowance in April, Zare had to leave Silver Spring.

“I was renting a room off of Georgia (Avenue), and I was not able to pay rent there anymore, so I actually moved back to my mom’s in Germantown for the time being,” he told States Newsroom in August, referring to another Maryland suburb.

Hillary Kane, director of the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development, said by the time the court orders were issued, many of her AmeriCorps members had already found other positions and she had completely let go of one of her full-time staffers.

While the court injunctions were “welcome news,” reinstating the programs remained “questionable,” Kane wrote in a July 21 update for Nonprofit Quarterly.

Kane’s organization is a member of the National College Attainment Network, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that was among the successful plaintiffs.

Other organizations that joined the lawsuit are based in California, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Virginia.

The Democratic-led states that won reinstatement for AmeriCorps members include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Going forward?

Kane got news on July 10 that PennSERVE, Pennsylvania’s state service commission, reinstated funding for her AmeriCorps program that places members in four West Philadelphia high schools to mentor students on their post-graduation plans.

The late notice meant Kane could only begin recruiting new members in mid-July.

“And so our start date has to be a bit fluid,” Kane told States Newsroom during a July 22 interview. “We have to essentially recruit people into this one-year cohort position, and say, ‘We’re hoping to start September 2, but we’re not 100% sure. Can you kind of just roll with it?’ It’s an awkward position to have to be in.”

Other AmeriCorps programs have not fared so well, as the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget continues to withhold funds that were appropriated by Congress for the ongoing fiscal year.

Trump signed legislation in March that extended the $1.26 billion for AmeriCorps for the full 2025 fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30.

Kane said the most “insidious” part of the recent AmeriCorps storyline is that programs that receive grants directly from the federal agency are being strung along by OMB.

“So there are agencies who have been theoretically awarded money, but they’re like, ‘Is it actually going to happen? Should I spend all this money and then not be able to bill the federal government to reimburse me if OMB is going to hold it hostage?’”

Programs at risk include 130 recently expired contracts for AmeriCorps Foster Grandparent and Senior Companions programs that support roughly 6,000 senior citizen volunteers across 35 states. The programs are eligible for just over $50 million for the new service year, which should be off to a start.

Congress pleads with budget office

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators pressed the executive branch agency on Aug. 1 to release the funds.

“Further delays in grantmaking will have immediate and irreversible consequences for programs, AmeriCorps members, and communities,” the senators wrote in a letter to OMB Director Russ Vought.

Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined Democratic Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York in signing the letter. All are members of the Senate National Service Caucus.

The White House and AmeriCorps did not respond for comment.

The Republican-led Senate Committee on Appropriations voted on July 31 to preserve $1.25 billion in AmeriCorps funding for fiscal year 2026. Collins chairs the committee.

U.S. House appropriators, which for the last two years under Republican leadership have sought to cut AmeriCorps funding, are expected to debate its budget in September. But it’s almost certain Congress will have to pass a stopgap spending bill when the end of the fiscal year arrives to stave off a partial government shutdown, so a final decision on funding may not come for months.

Change for everyone

Zare never did have a chance to say goodbye to all his students in April.

And even though the option was on the table, he did not sign up to serve a third year with AmeriCorps.

Before he applied and earned a spot with Project CHANGE, Zare was working odd jobs, including as a utilities contractor for Comcast. He had also earned his associate’s degree.

“I don’t think there’s any other program to take someone like me who was working a couple of different jobs and put them in an environment like this, to see firsthand as an American citizen how our classrooms operate and what position I would need to be in to actually be of benefit,” Zare told States Newsroom.

Zare is now freelancing and debating his next move, whether that’s a new job or further higher education.

“AmeriCorps is something that I’m always going to cherish because a lot of the people there still help me,” he said.

Editor’s note: D.C. Bureau Senior Reporter Ashley Murray served in AmeriCorps in 2009-2010.

Back in May, the federal agency AmeriCorps was hit hard when the Trump administration placed 85% of its staff on administrative leave, terminated nearly $400 million in federal contracts for the National Civilian Community Corps and reneged on over $550 million of congressionally approved funding for 2025. 

Actions at the federal level don’t always have immediate local impact, but in this case, organizations across Wisconsin were in shock as funding that they had been counting on suddenly disappeared. We invited people who were affected to get in touch with Wisconsin Watch video journalist Trisha Young. Within a day, she had multiple interviews lined up. 

Just as we were getting ready to publish a video with those interviews, a federal judge ruled that funding commitments for this year had to be honored for states – including Wisconsin – that had collectively sued the federal government over the AmeriCorps cuts. 

Trisha quickly got in touch with the people she’d interviewed, many of whom were still processing the news. We decided that this roller-coaster experience was a critical part of the story — or in some ways, the main story — and we reshot the interviews. 

We learned a lot from reporting this story, and we hope that viewers will consider a few questions as they watch the video: How much did you know about AmeriCorps and the programs it funds in Wisconsin? If you think these programs are doing valuable work, then how should they be funded?

You can say share your thoughts by emailing Cecilia at cdobbs@wisconsinwatch.org or Trisha at tyoung@wisconsinwatch.org.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

‘Harder to rebuild than it is to destroy’: AmeriCorps regroups in Wisconsin after judge restores funding that Trump cut is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Green Bay Conservation Corps workers, from left, Emily Swagel, Zak King and Cailie Kafura, plant native shrubs in Fireman's Park. The work is part of installing a pollinator corridor and a larger land restoration project across Green Bay. (Photo courtesy of Green Bay Conservation Corps)

Jake White says he was lucky.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate with a global health major, White was in his second year of an AmeriCorps placement in the Sawyer County Public Health Department, where he helped out with department reports and outreach to the community. Then AmeriCorps pulled the plug at the end of April — cancelling its grants to agencies all across the country.

White was in the middle of working with a team assigned to produce a community health assessment for the county when he got the news. Sawyer County kept him on so he could stick with the project, converting his position to a  limited-term employee (LTE) through the end of June, when White starts medical school in Wausau.

The reprieve also gave him a chance to hand over a second project, on substance abuse prevention, to another community member, White said. The future of that work was one of his biggest worries about AmeriCorps’ sudden shutdown.

His AmeriCorps experience at the county “really gave me the foundation for the skills and knowledge I will carry into my role as a physician,” White told the Wisconsin Examiner.

The aftermath of the AmeriCorps shutdown didn’t go as  smoothly for Maxwell Robin. He was placed with the St. Vincent DePaul charitable pharmacy in Madison.

“I did whatever needed to be done,” Robin said — working on computer projects at the pharmacy, filling prescriptions, serving as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking patients.

When the AmeriCorps cancellation notice arrived, the projects he was working on “got thrown into chaos,” Robin said a week after the notification.

Now a federal judge has ordered AmeriCorps to restore its grants and reinstate its volunteers. But all of that remains up in the air.

“Things are just very confusing now,” Robin said Friday.

Despite that, Robin has been able to move on. He is waiting to hear back from several job applications.

And he still volunteers part-time at the pharmacy, where he developed a strong interest in working in the nonprofit sector.

“We were able to take people who, for whatever reason, had been kicked to the side,” Robin said.

But program administrators still don’t know for sure what will happen and when.

“We are still waiting for official notification from AmeriCorps,” said Jeanne Duffy, the executive director of Serve Wisconsin, in an email message Friday.

Serve Wisconsin, based in the Wisconsin Department of Administration, is the state administrator for AmeriCorps.

Wisconsin has 25 AmeriCorps programs operating in more than 300 locations across the state — volunteers who are paid a stipend and who work in health care, help with environmental projects, assist in school classrooms and carry out  other projects.

When the Trump administration canceled AmeriCorps grants April 25, the action caught participants in the program as well as officials responsible for coordinating its work by surprise.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul joined the federal lawsuit brought by 25 states to challenge the AmeriCorps shutdown.

Thursday’s order, by U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman in Maryland, found that the Corporation for National Community Service, the agency that operates AmeriCorps, and its administration “likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking before making significant changes to service delivery, that the plaintiffs will be irreparably harmed if this injunction does not issue, and that the balance of the equities and the public interest favor an injunction.”

The cancellation affected programs all over Wisconsin that have worked with AmeriCorps, some of them for years, and the volunteers who have flocked to AmeriCorps looking for experience through community service work.

“It’s a tragedy,” said state Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde (D-Milwaukee), who spent two years as an AmeriCorps participant 15 years ago. “AmeriCorps is about volunteerism. We have limited resources and we have this unlimited need.”

In Green Bay, AmeriCorps helped staff the Green Bay Conservation Corps. Founded in 2022, the Conservation Corps has fielded teams of AmeriCorps members each year on projects that have included establishing a pollinator corridor through the city, removing invasive plants, maintaining walking trails and restoring area streams.

“Altogether we’ve seen over 70 AmeriCorps members come through our doors,” said Maria Otto, the Green Bay Conservation Corps coordinator. “They’re the ones getting the work done.”

The Green Bay city council passed a measure covering the rest of the 2025 service year from city funds.

“After two weeks of uncertainty, our entire crew was able to work for the Conservation Corps again” thanks to the funds, said Cailie Kafura, one of the AmeriCorps volunteers. The money will allow the program’s work to keep going through August.

“We were doing a lot of work that people maybe don’t even know is being done,” said Kafura. “I know that the work I’m doing, I want to be doing that kind of work in the future. I want to be using my body and my mind for good out in the world.”

Lynn Walter operates a nonprofit, New Leaf Foods, that promotes access to healthy food and education in the greater Green Bay area. Founded 15 years ago, New Leaf began working with AmeriCorps five years ago through a partnership with Marshfield Clinic. The clinic deploys AmeriCorps participants on health-related projects around the state.

Walter said Friday after the cancellation she was able to retain one of her three AmeriCorps participants this year on a contract basis. A second AmeriCorps member chose to stay on as a volunteer to complete a project she had been working on, while the third needed more paid hours and went to another job.

Even with the court ruling, Walter said, she’s been told that what happens next remains uncertain. And she fears there’s been longer-term damage regardless of what happens in the court case.

“Even if the program starts up again, there won’t be the momentum that there has been in the past,” Walter said. She expects prospective participants to be wary of signing up in the future: “What would you tell a young person?”

In his early 30s, Omokunde joined Public Allies, a leadership development nonprofit, in 2010 and 2011 as an AmeriCorps participant. He called the experience “a tipping point” for him personally and professionally.

“One of the core values is collaboration,” Omokunde said. “It taught me that collaboration is one of the most difficult things to do — but it’s one of the most necessary things to do.”

Omokunde is blunt in his assessment of why AmeriCorps was targeted in President Donald Trump’s second term.

“I think it follows a long tradition of people not valuing the work that is done in certain communities,” Omokunde said. “Donald Trump is a bully. He doesn’t want anything in opposition to him and his agenda.”

Omokunde ticked off a list of colleagues in politics who came up through AmeriCorps and Public Allies: State Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee), Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, former state Rep. David Bowen, and the late Milwaukee alder Jonathan Brostoff, also a former Assembly member.

“When he sees this cadre of individuals who are rooted in community and learning about asset-based community development, diversity and being committed to anti-oppression as well, people who represent all people, he doesn’t want that kind of opposition,” Omokunde said. “He just wants people to go along and do his bidding.”

The Trump administration must restore hundreds of millions of dollars in AmeriCorps grant funding and thousands of service workers in about two dozen states, including Wisconsin, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman granted a temporary block on the agency’s cancellation of grants and early discharge of corps members, but only for the states that sued the administration in April.

The federal lawsuit, filed by Democratic state officials across the country, accused President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting efforts through the Department of Government Efficiency of reneging on grants funded through the AmeriCorps State and National program, which was budgeted $557 million in congressionally approved funding this year.

Boardman also said all AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps members that were discharged from their service terms early should be reinstated, if they are willing and able to return.

But Boardman allowed the 30-year-old federal agency for volunteer service to proceed with its reduction in force, denying the states’ request to restore the majority of staff that were put on administrative leave in April. The agency employs more than 500 full-time federal workers and has an operating budget of roughly $1 billion.

AmeriCorps did not immediately respond to request for comment. The Department of Justice declined to comment.

The 30-year-old agency created to facilitate volunteer service across the country oversees several programs that dispatch hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of people to serve in communities.

It sends roughly 200,000 corps members across the country as part of its service programs. Most corps members get a living stipend during their service and become eligible for funding for future education expenses or to apply for certain student loans.

As part of the AmeriCorps State and National grant program, state volunteer commissions distributed more than $177 million in formula-based distributions, as well as $370 million in competitive grants that supported nearly 35,000 corps members serving at 300 organizations, according to announcements last year.

Notices of grants being terminated were sent late on a Friday in April, explaining “the award no longer effectuates agency priorities” and directing grantees to immediately shut down the projects, according to a copy reviewed by The Associated Press.

The states that sued the administration said those extensive and immediate cancellations did not provide the legally required notice and comment period. They said the result would be severely curtailed services and programs for vulnerable populations since states and organizations could not fill the funding void.

AmeriCorps argued in court filings that a temporary block on the agency’s actions as the lawsuit proceeds would disrupt efforts to comply with Trump’s executive order creating DOGE and to “act as responsible stewards of public funds,” according to court filings.

Despite bipartisan support, AmeriCorps has long been a target of critics who decry bloat, inefficiencies and misuse of funds.

“President Trump has the legal right to restore accountability to the entire Executive Branch,” Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary, previously said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed.

The lawsuit was filed by officials in Maryland, Delaware, California, Colorado, Arizona, Connecticut, Washington, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Judge: AmeriCorps must restore grant funding and workers to Wisconsin and other states is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.