‘Catastrophic’ AmeriCorps cuts hit local nonprofits

(This story has been updated to correct a reporting error. An earlier version misidentified the Michigan Community Service Commission. City Pulse regrets the error.)

Two days after her wedding, Maya Crawford learned she would lose her job.

As a youth program coordinator at the Edgewood Village Network Center, the 21-year-old AmeriCorps member had already seen other initiatives cut by the Trump administration. But what happened was “one of the worst possible options” her team had discussed, Crawford said.

Many AmeriCorps members had their service abruptly terminated in late April after the federal government slashed funding for the volunteer program. Though funding for the fiscal year was secured through Congress, the White House canceled $400 million in grants April 25, including over 1,000 programs and 32,000 members.

The program provides volunteers with a living allowance in exchange for serving local communities. Those who complete it also receive an education award for student loans or tuition.

Twenty-four states, including Michigan, filed a lawsuit arguing that President Donald Trump lacks authority to gut a program created and funded by Congress.

Crawford and one other AmeriCorps member were temporarily converted to contract employees at an East Lansing housing complex to finish out the summer. But after that, the future is uncertain.

“We don’t know how day-to-day afterschool things will be affected,” said Crawford, who runs an afterschool program for 6th through 12th graders.

She also organizes college visits and field trips, provides food and handles administrative work.

“I was in charge of maintaining community partnerships, managing the social media, making all the graphic design,” she said. “I shoot photography, I do all the email communicating, and I made our volunteer application digital so more people can access it.”

Crawford said the impact would be severe for communities who relied on AmeriCorps.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are going to be affected by this,” she said. “America is going to be hurting so bad, and it won’t kick in until six months or a year from now. We’re all going to be looking back, saying, ‘Oh my God, I’ve paid so much more in childcare than I did last year, or I had to go out of my way because these free extracurriculars or this scholarship to camp is not offered anymore.”

A spreadsheet of AmeriCorps cancellations in the lawsuit shows 19 grants in the greater Lansing area, though some funded organizations operate statewide. Since grant recipients often act as fiduciaries for local nonprofits, it is difficult to quantify local impact precisely. Nearly 300 members serving local grantees have been cut.

Casey Paskus and Margie Cole coordinate AmeriCorps programs for the Ingham County Health Department. They said all their AmeriCorps members were terminated but that different programs were hit differently.

Paskus coordinates AmeriCorps VISTA programs, including Crawford’s. She said VISTA members were placed on administrative leave for 30 days and would continue to receive their stipend and healthcare for that time.

Cole, who coordinates public health programs, said she received a “stop work” order from the Michigan Community Service Commission, her program’s grantee. Her members received no funding. Despite the pending lawsuit, Cole had to release her members.

“We don’t have the funds to pay them if we don’t have the grant,” she said. “So even if the grants might be reinstated, there is no way for the Health Department to pay members.”

Paskus said that because AmeriCorps members are technically volunteers, they are ineligible for unemployment.

Both Paskus and Cole will also lose their jobs May 23.

Kelli Beavers is a former AmeriCorps member and the director of programs and personnel at the Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness. The Lansing-based, statewide nonprofit uses AmeriCorps members to build capacity for local housing agencies.

“They provide those services that agencies don’t have the staffing or funding to provide,” she said. “They may be sitting down and doing intake or triage, or going out with street outreach workers.”

She said she had expected some cuts, but nothing so “catastrophic and immediate.”

The Michigan College Access Network, another Lansing-based, statewide nonprofit, also had its members cut. Executive director Ryan Fewins-Bliss said he failed to see how the cuts fit into Trump’s agenda.

“We knew DOGE had gone into the AmeriCorps headquarters,” he said, referring to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. “But I had hope, because the administration keeps talking about putting America first, and this program is all about Americans serving Americans.”

The Access Network is funding its terminated members, who work in high schools, community colleges and tribal campuses across Michigan, the remainder of the semester. The program’s future is unclear.

Proponents of the cuts say they are necessary to reduce the national deficit. Charley Ballard, a retired Michigan State University economics professor, doubts that justification’s legitimacy.

“I think the whole talk about cutting spending is not really serious about reducing deficits,” he said. “It’s serious about reducing the kinds of spending the administration doesn’t like. If you’re also going to have very large tax cuts, then that tells me you’re not really serious about reducing deficits, and the talk about deficits is just a smokescreen to cover what’s really going on.”

He said that the program, like others cut by DOGE, had been cut “in a careless way that maximizes disruption.”

“It’s either careless, or there is a deliberate policy of trying to blow up as much stuff in as chaotic a way as possible,” he said.

Ballard took pains to emphasize that he is retired and spoke to City Pulse on his own behalf, not MSU’s. He cited a fear of retribution in the current political climate as necessitating the clarification.

Despite everything, this year’s Russ Mawby Day of Service, in which Michigan AmeriCorps members gather for service projects, will still have a local leg. A Friday, May 16, cleanup at Fenner Nature Center hosted by the Ingham County Health Department will happen even without funding.

“That’s kind of just how we are,” Cole said.

Crawford said her program will be downsized by necessity, because “you can’t expect one person to do the job of three.”

“The government is going to say that nothing really changed, but things just got worse on the lower level for everyone else,” she said.

“It feels like a piece of my heart is gone because the government said so.”