Alaska
AmeriCorps cuts abruptly end service projects across Alaska, as dozens of volunteers are told to halt work
At least 87 federally funded AmeriCorps volunteers were notified this week that their current or upcoming service work in Alaska was abruptly canceled.
They include out-of-state volunteers set to work at Girl Scout Camps in Chugiak this summer, and local aspiring teachers planning to tutor young Alaskans.
AmeriCorps is a federal agency aimed at volunteerism that operates a network of local, state and national service programs. But last month, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began dismantling the program, placing the majority of the agency’s employees on administrative leave, and demobilizing a branch of close to 2,000 young volunteers three months before their service projects ended, according to the nonprofit that represents commissions in every state and territory.
Then, late last week, DOGE directed the termination of $400 million in AmeriCorps grants, the nonprofit reported, the vast majority of which were allocated to state and national programs through state commissions.
In Alaska, the funding loss amounts to $1.8 million, according to Katie Abbott, who leads the state commission that funds and supports local AmeriCorps programs, Serve Alaska. Serve Alaska funded five AmeriCorps programs that operated in 18 urban and rural communities across the state, Abbott said. On April 25, AmeriCorps’ interim director said in a message that federal funding had been cut for four of those programs — comprising 43 active volunteers and another 44 in the summer pipeline.
They were told “the grants no longer effectuate agency priorities,” Abbott said. One state grantee remains: The Student Conservation Association, an organization that hosts about 40 AmeriCorps volunteers annually to work projects on public lands in Alaska, was spared from cuts, though it’s unclear why. Additionally, an AmeriCorps Senior program, open to people 55 and older, remains intact with about 80 Alaska corps members.
The loss for residents — recipients of service work — is harder to quantify, volunteers and their host organizations said this week.
But it is being felt across the state, according to Abbott: Youths in Nenana will lose their science, technology, engineering and math coach. A number of low-income Alaskans dealing with the criminal justice system — about 35 per volunteer — will no longer have an advocate to connect them with recovery resources and housing aid. In Sitka, students will lose their tutors and classroom support, and mental health organizations in the community will be left without a workforce for youth community outreach. Kids in Ouzinkie will lose their dance coach. Koyukuk youths enrolled in an after-school program designed by the AmeriCorps members will miss out. Prince William Sound Science Center attendees will lose summer programming.
Also, 19 Alaska high school and college students — each interested in a teaching career and in the process of securing summer positions tutoring elementary schoolers in STEM — will no longer have an “on-ramp” into the education field, said Alaska Afterschool Network’s AmeriCorps program director, Lily Tegner.
Tegner was in the midst of onboarding the interns for their summer camp tutoring positions in the Anchorage and Mat-Su areas when the cuts came through, she said. Now, four weeks out from the beginning of summer, camps have to pivot their programming to account for a diminished workforce, and locals counting on a summer intern experience will have to find alternate plans, said Alaska Afterschool Network Executive Director Thomas Azzarella. He called the cuts a “major disruption,” and said the loss of AmeriCorps funding could mean both failing to keep talented Alaskans in Alaska, and missing an opportunity to attract new workers to the state.
Tegner herself is a former AmeriCorps volunteer who came to Alaska in 2021 and stayed on as an employee and a new Alaskan. She will be losing her job, which is funded through AmeriCorps dollars.
“I was able to find my whole career (through AmeriCorps),” said Tegner, whose educational background was in engineering. “Also, the thing that I keep thinking about is — Alaska became my home because of AmeriCorps. And I don’t want to leave.”
Twenty-three-year-old Morgan Scherrer didn’t want to leave, either, when her team of eight received notice that their 10-month stint in Alaska as young adult AmeriCorps volunteers was prematurely up on April 14.
They’d been stationed in Alaska since Halloween, with plans to stay through July in rotating service projects in Fairbanks, Anchorage and Yakutat. The team had just completed four months of work with the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, Anchorage re:MADE and the Fur Rendezvous, Scherrer said. They were scheduled to fly to Yakutat on April 24, to work for three months with the U.S. Forest Service doing habitat restoration and stream management in the Tongass National Forest.
“I can say without a doubt: My team was most excited for that project,” Scherrer said by phone this week.
Instead, she was on a plane to her hometown in Colorado on April 16.
Since returning to their respective homes, Scherrer and her team have been searching for a way to finish their service work, despite a lack of federal support. In just over a week, they had fundraised over $2,000 — about $500 shy of their goal to pay for food and gas, and just a third of the money they would have received in stipends from AmeriCorps. She said she’s in talks with the Forest Service, which may still be able to provide housing, and the City and Borough of Yakutat, which had promised her team a vehicle, she said.
If they meet their fundraising goal, she said they’d look to book flights on their own dime as soon as possible.
“Theoretically, our project would have started (on April 28),” Scherrer said. “So the sooner that we can get up there, the faster we can jump into the work that they need to get done.”
Another team of young service workers was days away from their flight to Anchorage to work at two Girl Scouts of Alaska camps in Chugiak for the summer when they were demobilized. They are also looking for a way to complete their service work, team leader Alani Rose said by phone from New Jersey this week. But Girl Scouts of Alaska CEO Jenni Pollard said the loss of federal support has made it trickier to host the AmeriCorps members, even if they do make their way back up to Alaska.
“We’re still trying to figure this out,” she said.
For the last several years, Pollard said, AmeriCorps teams have provided “really valuable capacity” in helping the camps with property maintenance, preparing for camp season and teaching programming to campers.
“To not have the AmeriCorps support is very disappointing for Alaska and the organizations that rely on all the services they provide,” Pollard said.
WHEREAS, on June 3, 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, World War II arrived in Alaska when Dutch Harbor on Amaknak Island was bombed by Japanese – the first aerial attack by an enemy on the continental United States; and
WHEREAS, the Japanese pilots expected little resistance; but because of an intercepted message three weeks earlier, the installation was on high alert, and Navy and Marine personnel were prepared with anti-aircraft defenses; and
WHEREAS, encountering unexpected resistance at Dutch Harbor, installation, Japanese forces shifted their focus to the Margaret Bay Naval Barracks, where the attack claimed the lives of 25 servicemen; and
WHEREAS, following the initial attack on Dutch Harbor, Japanese forces launched additional assaults on Dutch Harbor, Adak, Kiska, and Attu, resulting in the Aleut people being evacuated and held in internment camps in Southeast Alaska for three years, through which many did not survive; and
WHEREAS, the brave soldiers of the United States Armed Forces and allied Canadian Forces fought valiantly for more than a year to reclaim the remaining Aleutian Islands. The battle of Attu stands as one of the most costly American assaults in the Pacific, with hundreds of servicemen making the ultimate sacrifice to liberate Alaska; and
WHEREAS, on the 84th anniversary of the bombing of Dutch Harbor, we remember and honor all who were affected by the attack, paying tribute both to the military personnel who served and died to defend our Nation and to the Aleut people who died while imprisoned.
NOW THEREFORE, I, Mike Dunleavy, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF ALASKA, do hereby proclaim June 3, 2026, as:
Dutch Harbor Remembrance Day
in Alaska and encourage all Alaskans to join with the people of Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, and the Aleutian Islands to honor all who were lost in Alaska during World War II, and I order the Alaska State Flag to be flown at half-staff in remembrance of those who perished.
Dated: June 3, 2026
A plane belonging to the Alaska National Guard appears to have been damaged during operations connected to Operation Epic Fury as part of American military efforts against Iran, according to online reports. Defense officials have so far declined to confirm whether Alaska National Guard personnel or equipment are taking part in the campaign.
Last week, defense industry news outlet The War Zone published photos of a KC-135 Stratotanker transiting through a British airbase. In the pictures, made by photographer Andrew McKelvey, the rear bottom of the fuselage and wing stabilizers are “peppered with temporary shrapnel damage repairs‚“ according to The War Zone’s article. The plane also appears to be missing its refueling boom, the proboscis extending from under the tail to pump off fuel to other aircraft.
In the photographs, the Stratotanker’s tail number is visible, identifying the refueling plane as belonging to the Alaska Air National Guard’s 168th Wing, based at Eielson Air Force Base outside of Fairbanks. The wing’s mission includes aerial refueling. That’s the tactic of large planes unloading vast quantities of fuel to aircraft, ranging from fighter jets to rescue helicopters, in midair.
Pictures from a different photographer published last week by another blog, The Aviationist, show the same plane. The tail includes the letters “AK” painted above a white polar bear.
In addition to the photographs, the reporting from The War Zone is based on publicly available flight data and social media posts scraped from a variety of sources.
According to information from Flight Radar 24, the Stratotanker left Eielson on March 5, just days after the U.S. and Israeli militaries began bombing Iranian targets on Feb. 28. Through March, according to public flight records, the plane was based at Ben Gurion Airport southeast of Tel Aviv, where, according to The War Zone, dozens of American refueling aircraft were staged as part of Operation Epic Fury.
There are no public flight records connected to the Stratotanker through April and most of May, until it appeared to fly through England on the way to the United States at the end of last month.
It is not clear how many Alaska Air National Guard planes, personnel or units are currently deployed in connection to the war effort against Iran.
A spokesperson for the Alaska National Guard referred all questions about Operation Epic Fury to the U.S. Central Command.
A spokesperson for CENTCOM, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, declined to answer questions on the record or provide any specific information about Alaska National Guard units deployed as part of ongoing military operations, citing the need to protect service members and operational security.
The Alaska National Guard has posted no informational releases or pictures connected to an overseas deployment during the last few months.
Much of Operation Epic Fury has been waged by military aircraft, and aerial refueling is critical to keeping planes supplied during long flights. A May 12 report from the Congressional Research Service composed of public damage reports to U.S. military aircraft noted that among the 42 records of damage or losses were seven KC-135 Stratotankers, though the findings were published before photos emerged of the Alaska-based plane. The report noted that the Defense Department “has not published a comprehensive assessment of combat losses” from Operation Epic Fury.
The tail number is associated with a Stratotanker manufactured in 1964, the year before Boeing ceased making them. All of the nearly 400 KC-135s currently in operation within the American military date back to that era of the Cold War.
The aircraft has the word “Tetlin” painted on the top of its tail. The name is an homage to the Interior Alaska village, one of several selected to honor longstanding bonds between military aviators and Alaska Native communities, according to photographs of a dedication ceremony posted by the Alaska National Guard last summer.
The 168th Wing currently has 12 Stratotankers attached to the unit. That number bumped up in April after a long campaign by Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan to allocate more tankers to the state’s portfolio given its vast geography and high number of advanced fighter jets.
- Alaska Airlines is opening its newest Lounge at Portland International Airport, featuring thoughtfully designed spaces with twice the square footage and seating of the current space
- The new Lounge reflects the airline’s appreciation for its loyal guests and comes as Alaska continues to expand its service in Portland, offering more flights and more options for guests
- The investment to modernize the Portland Lounge is part of Alaska’s growing portfolio to elevate its global guest experience and expand its Lounge footprint, including new spaces in Seattle, San Diego and Honolulu
PORTLAND, Ore., June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Alaska Airlines is set to welcome guests to its newest Lounge at Portland International Airport (PDX) when it officially opens on June 4, underscoring its continued investment in premium travel and one of the carrier’s key West Coast hubs.
After more than two years of construction, the approximately 14,000-square-foot Lounge will welcome guests with a warm, thoughtfully designed Pacific Northwest aesthetic, featuring an inviting fireplace and a striking wooden Mt. Hood mural by artist Ben Butler. At twice the size of the current Portland Lounge, it offers more than 230 seats, including Alaska’s Signature Loungers, along with high, open ceilings that bring in natural light and views of PDX’s new terminal. Guests can relax, enjoy fresh, regionally inspired food, sip barista-crafted beverages or cocktails from West Coast partners, or take advantage of ample power plugs and privacy booths for calls and meetings.
“Portland guests have chosen Alaska for years and played an important role in our growth in the Pacific Northwest,” said Shane Jones, senior vice president of fleet, products and guest experience. “This new Lounge is our way of thanking them and a reflection of our growing portfolio of premium guest experiences. We look forward to opening our doors this week and welcoming guests with the signature hospitality and thoughtful touches Alaska is known for.”
Alaska is the largest carrier serving Portland, operating more flights than any other airline, including more than 100 daily departures. Portland is a critical hub in Alaska and Hawaiian’s network with expanding service to over 60 destinations across North America and beyond. This summer, Alaska will launch year-round service to Everett/Paine Field and Pasco–Tri-Cities, along with seasonal service to Jackson Hole. Last month, new service began to Baltimore, Bellingham, Idaho Falls, Philadelphia and St. Louis. By this fall, Alaska will offer 50% more seats in Portland than just two years ago, reflecting strong demand for travel and the airline’s continued investment in the market.
“Our strong partnership with Alaska has helped to elevate the new PDX as a world-class destination that showcases the Pacific Northwest and makes everyone feel at home,” said Chris Czarnecki, PDX business and properties director. “We’re thrilled their new PDX Lounge is here for the long-haul, offering travelers a stunning spot to relax, recharge, and experience a taste of our region.”
The nearly $18 million investment in the Portland Lounge is part of Alaska’s growing Lounge footprint and broader commitment to enhancing the guest experience as it expands globally. Building on this investment, Alaska just announced its plans to open a landmark, more than 41,000-square-foot Lounge in 2027. The Lounge, which will be located in Seattle – home to the airline’s main hub – will be the largest in its network and among the largest airline lounges in the country. The airline is also designing its first Lounge in San Diego along with a new, expanded Lounge in Honolulu, both slated for early 2028.
Alaska Airlines Lounge members can access eight premium Lounges across the Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines network, including its largest Lounge in Seattle and additional locations at its hubs in Anchorage, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Alaska Lounge+ membership unlocks access to all Alaska Lounges, plus nearly 90 partner Lounges worldwide, including select oneworld and partner Lounges. To learn more or sign up to become an Alaska Lounge member, click here.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is Alaska Airlines opening at Portland International Airport?
A: Alaska Airlines is opening a newly redesigned Lounge at Portland International Airport (PDX) on June 4, 2026, offering a larger, more modern space with premium amenities, regional food and beverage options, and enhanced comfort for guests.
How big is the new Alaska Lounge in Portland?
A: The new Lounge is approximately 14,000 square feet—about twice the size of the previous Portland Lounge—and features more than 230 seats.
What amenities are available in the new Alaska Lounge at PDX?
A: Guests can enjoy:
- Barista-crafted coffee and specialty beverages
- West Coast-inspired cocktails
- Fresh, locally inspired food
- Signature Lounge seating and private booths
- Ample power outlets and workspaces
- Relaxation areas with premium finishes
Who can access Alaska Airlines Lounges?
A: Access is available to:
- Alaska Lounge members
- Alaska Lounge+ members
- Eligible First Class guests
- Eligible oneworld and partner airline passengers
What is the difference between Alaska Lounge and Lounge+ membership?
A: Alaska Lounge+ membership includes access to all Alaska Lounges plus nearly 90 partner Lounges worldwide, while standard Alaska Lounge membership provides access to all eight Alaska-operated Lounges.
Why is Portland important to Alaska Airlines?
A: Portland is one of Alaska Airlines’ key West Coast hubs, with more than 100 daily departures and nonstop service to over 60 destinations across North America. By this fall, Alaska will offer 50% more seats in Portland than just two years ago, reflecting strong demand for travel and the airline’s continued investment in the market.
How is Alaska Airlines expanding its Lounge network?
A: Alaska Airlines is investing in multiple new and expanded Lounges, including:
- A 41,000+ square feet landmark Lounge in Seattle opening in 2027
- A new Lounge in San Diego
- An expanded Lounge in Honolulu
How much did Alaska Airlines invest in the new Portland Lounge?
A: Alaska Airlines invested nearly $18 million in the new Portland Lounge as part of its broader investment in premium travel as the airline continues to grow globally.
About Alaska, Hawaiian and Horizon
Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Horizon Air are subsidiaries of Alaska Air Group, and McGee Air Services is a subsidiary of Alaska Airlines. We are a global airline with hubs in Seattle, Honolulu, Portland, Anchorage, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. We deliver remarkable care as we fly our guests to more than 140 destinations throughout North America, Latin America, Asia, the Pacific and Europe. Guests can book travel at alaskaair.com and hawaiianairlines.com. Alaska and Hawaiian are members of the oneworld alliance. Members of our Atmos Rewards loyalty program can earn and redeem points with oneworld airlines and our additional global partners that serve over 1,000 worldwide destinations. Learn more about what’s happening at Alaska and Hawaiian at news.alaskaair.com. Alaska Air Group is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as “ALK.”
SOURCE Alaska Airlines
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