Young volunteers who respond to natural disasters and help with community projects across the U.S. have been discharged.

Young volunteers who respond to natural disasters and help with community projects across the U.S. have been discharged as a result of the Trump administration ‘s campaign to shrink government workforce and services. AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps informed volunteers Tuesday that they would exit the program early “due to programmatic circumstances beyond your control,” according to an email obtained by The Associated Press. More than 2,000 people ages 18 to 26 serve for nearly a year, according to the program’s website, and get assigned to projects with nonprofits and community organizations or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It celebrated its 30th year last year. The volunteers are especially visible after natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Helene last year. The organization said on social media last month that teams have served 8 million service hours on nearly 3,400 disaster projects since 1999.

  • GoodLuckToFriends@lemmy.todayEnglish
    22·
    2 days ago

    I still get emails from AmeriCorps every now and then. It was a fun year of camping in a tent and maintaining trails and such in remote parks, and then another fun year of working in an impoverished school with families who needed help applying for aid. It is mind boggling that these idiots think the best way of saving money is cutting people from the workforce who make a stipend (not even a wage, so it can be fucked with in taxes even more) of something like $11,000 a year… and thus losing labor that makes a large impact down the road.

    • unsettlinglymoist@lemmy.world
      7·
      2 days ago

      I worked for a state government agency that had a bunch of Americorps volunteers working in our office and I became friends with most of them. They were in the office with us every day and they made $1000/month IIRC, and they were all on food stamps. Really dumb indeed to cut these people who do important work for a fraction of the cost of a salaried employee.

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
    6·
    2 days ago

    DOGE only makes sense if you assume the people in charge of it are a combination of stupid and actively trying to destroy the US. They should all be hanged.