The news that AmeriCorps, a program created during the presidency of George H.W. Bush in 1990, is being gutted hit me like a ton of bricks.
Regardless of what I am now, I will always be an AmeriCorps.
This program and its offshoots were a home run for underfunded and impoverished communities in the United States. This is particularly true in West Virginia, where I served in the Lifebridge program from August 2012 to August 2013 as volunteer in a food pantry and ‘career closet’ for Christian Help in Morgantown.
I was raised Jewish but am now irreligious. Christian Help was happy to have me all the same, particularly at a time in my life where there was so much uncertainty about the direction I was heading.
They nurtured me, gave me multiple chances, and ultimately helped me grow into a much better person today because of their patience with an immature 23-year-old. Their patience allowed me to make a difference in the community I called home for almost a decade.
And I did it while making less than minimum wage. How? And why? Well, that’s an easier one to answer: First, AmeriCorps often offers a generous educational stipend for students to use towards tuition or repaying student loans. Second, it’s not about the money. It’s meant to be a calling. It’s the Peace Corps at home.
AmeriCorps programs offer plenty of reasons for people to get involved in bettering their communities. Most importantly, it offers an affordable way for the government and non-profit organizations to share the burden of increased labor costs without necessarily having to overspend. Margins are always going to be tight when it comes to non-profit work, so finding ways to add capable bodies to the roster without stretching themselves thin and harming the work they do is important.
Anecdotally, I have often heard the idea come up that the U.S. should have mandatory military service because of the benefits it provides both to the citizen and the nation. However, I disagree. What should be mandatory is a form of service — any service — to your community, state and nation. Whether it be the military, AmeriCorps, Peace Corps or something else, you can serve your community and your people.
The decision by DOGE and the Trump Administration to gut this program, to lay off a massive portion of its staff and to ultimately put the future of it in jeopardy without much of a fight from Congress is of deep concern. AmeriCorps serves in more than just food pantries. Locally — and across the country — they are used by professors, teachers and historians to help do the hard work of preserving our rich American and West Virginian history. They work with the United Way. They work in literacy programs. They work to bring low-income communities out of poverty.
AmeriCorps was not the brain child of some coastal elite liberal or zealot conservative; the National and Community Service Act was created by a Democratic congress and signed by a Republican executive. It was an act of bipartisanship that marked the era and reinvigorated the spirit of volunteerism.
And now, in this era of hyper partisanship and politicized rhetoric, it has been deemed unworthy by DOGE and the Trump Administration. That bettering and strengthening our rural and urban communities alike through volunteerism and educational pursuit should be unworthy of our American ideals rings false to me.
This decision should be reversed as quickly as possible. U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) has already suggested she will use her power to push back on cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the research they do. Will anyone in Congress stand up for AmeriCorps and the American communities it serves?
Already, the state of West Virginia declined to join a multistate lawsuit on this issue. For the more than 200 positions eliminated instantly across the state, I’d encourage the state to reconsider.
Alex Wiederspiel is the Creative and Digital Content Director for WKMZ and WKMZnews.com. He is the host of the one-hour variety show The Morning Spiel and two-hour high school sports show Friday Free For All.