AmeriCorps members Julia Duymic, left, 29, of Clairton, and Devin Northcutt, 18, of Penn Hills, embrace on Duymic’s last day working as an Americorps member at Braddock Youth Project, Tuesday, May 6, 2025, at the Nyia Page Community Center in Braddock. The two lost their roles helping youth as AmeriCorps members when President Donald Trump’s administration announced large cuts to AmeriCorps. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
In-school help, community gardening and literacy tutoring may be trimmed if the federal cut holds and alternative funding sources don’t emerge.
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“While we’re having lunch, we’re having conversation,” Abubaker said. They may talk about “what’s happening in their life or solving a problem that’s happening within their own little friend group and working on strategies for how we move forward when we’re struggling.”
The 26-year-old who lives with her parents in Scott Township recently learned that she’d soon be out of a job, though her bosses at Homewood Children’s Village don’t want to see her go. President Donald Trump’s administration announced large cuts to AmeriCorps, which funds Abubaker’s work with Homewood Children’s Village, in late April. Originally, it seemed like she needed to go immediately, so on May 9, she said goodbye to her students at a going-away party.
“I’ve been with them like the whole year, and now I have to tell them I’m not going to be with them until the end of the year. So that’s impacting them and also jarring,” Abubaker said before the party. “While I knew the program was going to end in June, finding out you’ve been laid off right away and you need to look for something else starting next week also put a wrench into things.”
Abubaker since learned she can stay on until May 25 – but there’s no hope of renewal beyond then.
AmeriCorps, a federal agency founded in 1993 with roots stretching back to the 1960s, pays modest stipends to individuals who do community service work for groups around the country in terms of up to one year, which can be renewed. Historically, AmeriCorps members have been deployed to sites of natural disasters and schools in need of extra help, as well as other settings.
In April, the Trump administration abruptly canceled about $400 million in AmeriCorps program funding, which resulted in termination notices for about 80% of all AmeriCorps programs, according to America’s Service Commissions, a nonpartisan association supporting service groups around the country. Like many other moves seemingly instigated by the Elon Musk-associated Department of Government Efficiency, this has inspired lawsuits against the federal government, which could reverse or delay the cuts.
In a statement to PublicSource, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services confirmed that Pennsylvania has joined in the efforts to sue the federal government.
KEYS Service Corps, a large, county-supported AmeriCorps program in the Pittsburgh region, “will not take preemptive action to reduce or end local programs,” according to the statement. The statement notes that, since its inception in 1995, KEYS has provided 3.2 million hours of service.
The massive cut shocked the systems of several Pittsburgh organizations that rely on the agency and are now scrambling for paths through the uncertainty. Local organizations were under the impression they needed to quickly end all AmeriCorps programming, but on May 9, the organizations learned they had another 14 days to “wind down,” as one put it. Still, especially considering the ongoing litigation, the organizations’ leaders feel uncertain.
A spokesperson for the White House did not respond to a request for comment from PublicSource.
Several organizations noted the value brought by AmeriCorps members, whom they regularly hire after their terms with the agency.
‘We have no plan’
In late April, Carey Harris, chief executive officer of Literacy Pittsburgh, received an email announcing that its relationship with AmeriCorps will be terminated. Seven AmeriCorps members — nearly 10% of the organization’s staffing — currently assist in providing literacy tutoring to Pittsburgh-area residents with the goal of readying them for the workforce.
“It’s been stressful,” said Harris. “We’re trying to understand what the state and federal government want us to do. And that is not entirely clear yet.”
AmeriCorps members often end up later hired by Literacy Pittsburgh, Harris says. The timing of the cuts makes planning for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, difficult.
“I’m hard-pressed to understand how abruptly ending a contract, and all the drama that brings, protects us from waste, fraud and abuse. It actually seems quite wasteful,” Harris said. “It’s one thing if you don’t want to fund something going forward. Just don’t fund it going forward. To abruptly pull things back and then tie a bunch of lawyers up in litigation, all this time and energy wasted trying to figure out what’s the path forward, it is the very definition of waste.”
When Cassie Staub, Braddock Youth Project’s garden team coordinator, first heard rumblings of AmeriCorps cuts, she frantically Googled and reviewed lists shared on social media of potentially affected organizations. BYP later confirmed that its AmeriCorps funding will be terminated. For the summer, the organization typically receives help from several AmeriCorps members in providing youth programming.
“We have no plan. I don’t really know,” Staub said. “We’re already having trouble figuring out how we’re going to do the summer.”
Thanks to AmeriCorps, youth who participated in BYP became adults who helped to facilitate it.
“Youth start here at age 14, and we have them up until graduation,” Staub said. “And then we usually put them in AmeriCorps for one year to two years as a gap if they’re going to go to college.”
Looking for ‘a big difference maker’
Walter Lewis, president and CEO of Homewood Children’s Village, faces the impending loss of 10 AmeriCorps members who assist in the classrooms of four Homewood-area schools. The need for such help, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic affected academic performance and attendance, is massive in Homewood, according to Lewis.
“Even getting kids to want to come back to school after the pandemic has been a challenge. We’ve been, I think, overcoming that, and I think our AmeriCorps members have been at the center of that,” Lewis said. “For some kids, that member is the person that they look forward to seeing every day when they come to school.”
Lewis wants to keep on the 10 AmeriCorps members through the year’s end, and the organization plans to crowdfund with a goal of $80,000. He’s also looking into having volunteers do some of the work the AmeriCorps members used to do.
“We know that there are people in the community who may not have a lot of money to give,” Lewis said. “Maybe they only have $25 that they can donate. But they might be able to donate a few hours of their time each week, which could be a big difference maker.”
Gayle Rabare, the AmeriCorps program manager for Homewood Children’s Village, doesn’t know her role going forward. Lewis described Rabare as “instrumental” to the success of the organization. Rabare’s passion for service has led her to gather other local AmeriCorps project leaders for collaboration and support.
“The messaging from Walter has been, we’re going to try to find a way to continue this, and we’re gonna need a ‘you’ to continue managing the people, even if they’re not AmeriCorps members,” Rabare said.
Correction: Literacy Pittsburgh continues to hire and has not made decisions regarding existing, AmeriCorps-backed staff. An earlier version of this story mischaracterized agency personnel decisions.
Matt Petras is an independent writer and adjunct professor based in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com.
This story has been fact-checked by Jamie Wiggan.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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