Sydney Paradise knew something was wrong when she got a call from her boss on a Saturday morning.
It was her day off from her job as a water resource assistant at the Squam Lakes Association, a position she got through an AmeriCorps program. But she headed into the office to meet with her coworkers. That’s where the association’s leadership broke the news: their program was terminated, effective immediately.
“It was just a whole rigamarole of questions after that,” Paradise said. “We’ve just been figuring things out since then.”
Paradise’s AmeriCorps program, the Lakes Region Conservation Corps, was one of more than 1,000 that were cut across the country after the Trump Administration slashed that agency’s budget in April. More than 32,000 people receiving a stipend through AmeriCorps for their volunteer work in disaster recovery to education had to stop working.
Most agency staff were also placed on leave. Federal officials have pointed to improper payments as the reason for the move. Some grant recipients have sued to block the cuts.
Finding out about the termination brought Paradise to tears.
“Taking this resource position is so much more than just AmeriCorps,” she said. “For me, it’s like the funding to conserve the environment in the region. It’s the stipend for me to make the change that I want to see in this watershed.”
The work Paradise and other corps members across the Lakes Region did – taking water quality measurements, helping with trail maintenance, monitoring the health of the ecosystem, putting on free educational programs, and even scuba diving to weed out invasive plants from the depths of the lake – will be difficult to maintain without the AmeriCorps program, said Katri Gurney, the Squam Lakes Association’s assistant director.
Gurney was the first manager for the association’s AmeriCorps program. She said she’s connected with close friends through the work, and she’s frustrated by the abrupt ending.
“I have seen people grow in confidence and knowledge and experience,” she said. “It's devastating to me, both on the level of the Lakes Region Conservation Corps, but also on the level of AmeriCorps programs around the nation that are serving unbelievable social goals that are meant to unify this nation.”
Gurney says the eight host organizations for Lakes Region Conservation Corps members are working to find the financial means to keep them on.
“I definitely know some of us are going to struggle to do so,” she said. “At this moment, we aren’t completely clear on what the path forward looks like.”
The Lakes Region Conservation Corps lost $567,000 that was set to support 29 members this year, according to Kaira Esgate, the Chief Executive Officer of America’s Service Commissions. Sixteen of the 29 members have already started their service, she said.
The Retired Senior Volunteer Program of Monadnock also received a termination notice, she said. That group had an $87,000 grant pulled, which was set to support programming for older adults. A $65,000 planning grant for clean energy efforts in New Hampshire municipalities was also terminated, along with $222,000 in funds that were set to be used for future AmeriCorps programming.
The state still has several AmeriCorps programs up and running, Esgate said, including City Year, Manchester Excels, Granite State Education Corps, and the Student Conservation Association.
Esgate said while some states had all of their programs terminated, some were spared. But, she said, there’s no consistency she can see.
The loss of the programs, she said, impacts the communities they serve as well as the Corps members, who often use their service as a stepping stone to a career. America’s Service Commissions set up an emergency fund for members who were pulled from their programs in the middle of their service.
“These are individuals that have committed a year of their life to service. They have stepped forward and say, ‘I want to help my community,’” Esgate said. “The fact that they no longer have that opportunity, I think, is just devastating.”
