Until last month, 25-year-old Theo Faucher was an AmeriCorps team leader. He and 10 others got a small stipend to build affordable homes in Virginia, remove hurricane debris in Florida, and repair park trails in West Virginia. That's where they were, in the middle of New River Gorge National Park, when Faucher's boss called with shocking news.
"Essentially it was, pull your team off the work site, pack up your camp, hit the road tonight, if possible," he recalled.
The Trump administration had in AmeriCorps grants, a sizable chunk of the agency's roughly billion dollar budget. A notice on April 25 said the grants no longer fit AmeriCorps' priorities, but offered no detail on why not.
Some 32,000 people across the country 鈥� mostly young adults but also senior volunteers 鈥� have had to immediately stop their work in fields like disaster recovery, education, environmental stewardship and public health.
The Trump administration also fired most AmeriCorps staff last month. The combined cuts have gutted a federal agency created three decades ago as a way for people to serve their country.
"I kinda feel devastated," said Brandon Fernandez, who's 21 and was helping with disaster recovery after Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. He was hoping the assignment might lead to a job with FEMA.
When his group was told they were being disbanded, he said he and others struggled to hold back tears. "My bosses did not know about this at all," Fernandez said. "They were shocked as well."
Faucher, the team leader who got the news in West Virginia, said slashing the budget of this small agency is a shame.
"I think AmeriCorps is a very patriotic program," he said, calling it good for the country and good for the young adults he led. They were 18 and 19 year olds who'd never left home and weren't sure what they wanted to do with their lives, he said. But as they traveled the country together, "the personal growth and agency and competence I saw in these members was massive."
"To have that opportunity ripped away from them is just unconscionable," said Kaira Esgate, CEO of , a nonprofit that represents the state groups that manage AmeriCorps funding.
She admitted there have been issues, noting that AmeriCorps has . A White House spokeswoman cited the same thing in a statement to NPR, and pointed to $45 million