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.