AmeriCorps faces funding cuts

CEDAR RAPIDS - Back in 2008 when the first AmeriCorps class was serving at the National Civilian Community Corps Campus in Vinton, its members quickly were pressed into service in Cedar Rapids and other communities along the Cedar River to help Iowans cope with historic floods.

Those efforts were just a part of the 12 million-plus hours that more than 9,300 Iowa residents have served in AmeriCorps since 1994.

Now, however, AmeriCorps, whose members have put in more than 1 billion hours of service to their country, face a human-made crisis - a funding drought.

Many of the services they perform could end if a House Republican plan to cut funding by $500 million - 42 percent of President Barack Obama's funding request - is approved, according to Samantha Warfield of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the umbrella agency over AmeriCorps.

Among the programs affected would be an early literacy program beginning its fifth year in the Cedar Rapids Community School District that uses 15 AmeriCorps members.

In the 2014-15 school year, the program provided one-on-one and small-group support to more than 500 students and AmeriCorps members contributed more 5,000 hours of academic assistance in five Cedar Rapids elementary schools and McKinley Middle School, said Kelli Holubeck, Youth Achievement AmeriCorps Program manager at the United Way of East Central Iowa.

They also serve as role models, helping develop positive relationships and a supportive environment for students, she said.

'Our goal is to serve the unserved,” Holubeck said. 'We focus on academic assistance and social emotional supports for the students and families we serve.”

An evaluation of the program found that in addition to helping students make academic gains they 'make leaps and bounds of progress in relation to things such as engagement, confidence and attitude - which in my mind is a huge win as well,” Holubeck said.

AmeriCorps members also help the United Way in its 'early, early literacy intervention program,” RED (Read Every Day) Ahead, offered at the urban Women, Infants and Children clinic. They work with children and their parents to teach literacy strategies.

Without AmeriCorps, 'this would not be possible,” Holubeck said. 'I am no expert in the federal funding arena, but I do know our program has been making great impacts in the lives of our students and families for the past four years.”

Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity has been using AmeriCorps members since 2008, according to construction director Ron Olinger.

'They're very important to us,” he said. Right now, he added, AmeriCorps members fill the positions of volunteer coordinator, construction coordinator and family services.

'We'd be short-staffed without them,” Olinger said. ”Since we're a non-profit, we are limited on what we can do in terms of salary. That's what makes them so important. They're energetic and do the job for so little pay.”

Full-time AmeriCorps members get a living allowance and $5,600 to pay college expenses or repay student loans. Members get even less than that - less than minimum wage, Adam Lounsbury, executive director of Volunteer Iowa said - while they live Vinton campus for roughly 10 months.

Overall, the effect of cuts in the Cedar Rapids area would be 'pretty bad,” he said. About half of all AmeriCorps member in Iowa are in the 1st District, including Vinton where a part of the Braille and Sight-Saving School campus is the base for as many as 500 AmeriCorps members a year.

'Devastating,” Clint Twedt-Ball at Matthew 25 said about the potential loss of AmeriCorps members. 'It would have a pretty huge impact. Considering that we have a staff of eight, they nearly double our staff.”

Matthew 25 will begin its third year later this month as a host site for AmeriCorps members serving in the Green Corps. The members, who spend 12 months in Cedar Rapids, conduct more than 150 energy audits each year in Linn County and work on weatherization projects that reduce heating and cooling bills for low-income resident, Twedt-Ball said.

The AmeriCorps members also work on school projects and Matthew 25's urban farm. The conducted 100 educational events to teach students about energy efficiency and about three dozen outreach projects such as helping with the Freedom Festival and roadside cleanups.

Lounsbury is optimistic the large-scale cuts will be avoided, but doubts AmeriCorps can completely escape congressional budget hawks.

The Iowa congressional delegation and Gov. Terry Branstad historically have been supportive, he said 'and I hope they continue to make it a priority.”

No one was a bigger champion than Iowa's retired U.S. senator, Tom Harkin.

'Nobody - nobody makes more effective use of federal funding and I would just say makes more to do with less and less and less than those of you in AmeriCorps,” he said at a program honoring the participants last year.

Referring to the 2008 flood, Harkin said it 'sort of demonstrated Mother Nature at its worst, but young AmeriCorps members showed human nature at its best.”

The outcome of the House Republican budget proposal is unclear, but 2nd District Rep. Dave Loebsack, an Iowa City Democrat, hopes the budget cuts aren't fatal to AmeriCorps.

'He supported the president's funding request in a letter to the House appropriators and also created the Volunteer Generation Fund,” Loebsack spokesman Joe Hand said.