AmeriCorps volunteers sent home amid federal DOGE cuts, eliminating a ‘first line of defense’ in disaster response

Volunteers who respond to disasters and aid nonprofits through the federal AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps were informed Tuesday they have been let go from service, effective immediately.

Volunteers were told they would exit the program early “due to programmatic circumstances beyond your control,” according to an email obtained and reported by the Associated Press.

The cuts are the latest in a series of federal government reductions by the Department of Government Efficiency — known as DOGE — which are aimed at cutting spending and decreasing the size of the government workforce.

AmeriCorps NCCC is open to people ages 18 to 26. They are assigned to a regional campus to complete training and receive team assignments. Their service lasts 10-11 months, according to the organization’s website.

There are four regional AmeriCorps NCCC campuses. The North Central Region campus is located at the former Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School in Vinton. Phone messages left at the campus in Vinton seeking comment were not returned Wednesday.

A person who answered the phone at AmeriCorps’ national offices said all volunteers with the NCCC program have been sent home, regardless of assignment or location.

“We don't know if this program is going to be back up. We don't know what's going to happen, to be honest, just unfortunately, the members are on administrative leave. We really do not know what's going on, to be honest with you,” said the person, who declined to identify themselves.

John Myers, executive director of Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids, said the AmeriCorps volunteers assigned to work at the nature center were part of the NCCC. The 10 volunteers were supposed to work at the nature center for eight weeks, but they left after just six.

The nature center got a call Tuesday that the program would be shutting down immediately.

“We were told that the team was to return home and was disbanded,” Myers said Wednesday. “We got the word just yesterday afternoon, and within a few hours, they were done and sent back to where they're from.”

Myers said it was his understanding that officials from DOGE were in Vinton Tuesday to shut the campus down.

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With two weeks of work left unfinished at the nature center, Myers said the task of completing those projects will fall to nature center staff and local volunteers.

“They were able to make some incredible headway and they left some land restoration projects unfinished for us, so it's going to take us probably several months worth of work from staff and volunteers in order to get done what was supposed to be done by the team in the last two months, because they had 10 people here full-time, each day,” Myers said. “That made a huge difference.”

The dismantling of the NCCC program also will have an impact on future projects at Indian Creek Nature Center and organizations like it that depended on AmeriCorps.

“For the amount of cost of this program, it seems pretty shortsighted to shut it down, because the AmeriCorps program really contributes a lot of work to our communities throughout the United States,” he said. “It seems a shame to be able to shut it down.”

In Vinton, which hosted volunteers housed at the former Braille and Sight Saving School, Mayor Bud Maynard told the Associated Press the program “has been without a doubt, a blessing for Vinton.”

“All of Vinton should never forget what a great program, filled with great people, this has been for not only Vinton but every community that benefited from their mission,” Maynard said in a statement.

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Not all AmeriCorps programs affected by federal cuts

Other branches of AmeriCorps still are operating, but not without concerns.

Ashley Coffin, director of Green Iowa AmeriCorps, said that branch of the program has not experienced member cuts or a funding freeze to date because they are a state-level AmeriCorps program with a different funding source than the NCCC.

Although her branch of the program is “financially safeguarded” at the moment, Coffin said she still has concerns about cuts at the federal level.

“I think anybody who's receiving federal funds right now is feeling concerned,” she said. “It hit closer to home with another branch of AmeriCorps programming being impacted. That certainly is alarming to us and certainly we're trying to do all that we can at the state level (and) at our local levels, to make sure people are aware of how important these services really are and the kind of opportunities they create.”

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Coffin said NCCC volunteers have been the “first line of defense.”

“When you think about all we've experienced here in Iowa with flooding and tornadoes, the AmeriCorps members you see in those moments are NCCC members, responding to those disaster events,” she said. “These young people have realistically committed their time and energy to making where we live safer, trying to bolster public service. Those are the people who are being sent home at this point.”

AmeriCorps volunteers have responded after natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Helene last year.

They were particularly visible in Iowa after the 2020 derecho. After the floods that devastated Eastern Iowa in 2008, volunteers from AmeriCorps VISTA — a branch of that focuses on building the capacity of organizations serving low-income communities to address poverty according to their website — stepped in to aid with relief efforts.

The organization said on social media last month that teams have served 8 million service hours on nearly 3,400 disaster projects since 1999.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

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Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com