By Mariana Alfaro, Tobi Raji, The Washington Post (c) 2025
Before Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) became a politician, he was an AmeriCorps member.
Thirty years ago, fresh out of college, Fetterman was sent to Pittsburgh’s Hill District as part of the program’s second class. He spent his days helping young mothers and fathers earn their GEDs in the predominantly Black community, where he also built the area’s first computer lab.
In a call with The Washington Post, the senator said the experience was “transformative.”
“It allowed me to live and serve in a community that otherwise struggled to afford a full-time staff,” he said. “It helped me, and it changed my career.”
The Trump administration is now paring back the agency – and politicians and civil servants such as Fetterman who began their careers in AmeriCorps are warning that dismantling it endangers the future of U.S. public service. Last week, the White House put most of the agency’s roughly 650 full-time staff members on paid administrative leave “effective immediately,” essentially shuttering an organization that oversees hundreds of thousands of volunteers nationwide.
On Wednesday, Democratic Sens. Chris Coons (Delaware) and Martin Heinrich (New Mexico) – the first AmeriCorps alumnus to be elected to the Senate – sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to reverse his cuts to the agency. Forty-four senators and 105 House members – all Democrats – co-signed the letter, including Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (New York).
“We are deeply concerned these actions will prevent the agency from continuing to deliver critical services, which include supporting veterans, fighting wildfires, tutoring in schools, combating the fentanyl epidemic, and much more,” the lawmakers wrote.
Spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Through AmeriCorps, the lawmakers argue, young Americans are exposed to community work and civic engagement at little expense to the federal government.
AmeriCorps costs the government “pennies to the dollar,” said Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pennsylvania), an Air Force veteran who served in Teach for America in Philadelphia through AmeriCorps. Her experience teaching high school chemistry, she said, gave her a sense of purpose and shaped the way she tackled education policy as a lawmaker. She also credited the experience for helping her get started in public service, as it has for many alumni.
“It’s a selfless act to serve, but you are gaining experience, and you are able to parlay that into opportunities in the civilian economy,” she said.
Houlahan has led bipartisan efforts in the House to protect the agency. Alongside Reps. Doris Matsui (D-California), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) and Don Bacon (R-Nebraska), she introduced a measure that would block federal cuts to AmeriCorps. Separately, the lawmakers sent the White House a letter earlier this month demanding that Trump work with Congress on any proposed cuts to the organization.
In a statement to The Post, Fitzpatrick spokeswoman Casey-Lee Waldron said the Pennsylvania Republican – a former FBI agent – believes AmeriCorps is a “vital pillar of national service.”
“That’s why he’s fighting to protect AmeriCorps from cuts and will continue working across the aisle to ensure it remains a national priority,” Waldron said.
Heinrich said spending a year with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the program was crucial in shaping how he serves his constituents in the Senate.
“It taught me that there is nothing more rewarding than serving others,” Heinrich told The Post in an email.
Shutting down AmeriCorps would have immediate effects for New Mexico, Heinrich said.
“I will not stand idly by now as programs built to serve our most vulnerable populations and support our public institutions are dismantled as a result of the DOGE boys’ efforts to line billionaire pockets,” he said, referring to the U.S. DOGE Service. He called the Trump administration’s cuts “a slap in the face to hardworking families who rely on the work done by AmeriCorps every day.”
It’s not clear, however, if the lawmakers’ efforts to save AmeriCorps will succeed.
Houlahan told The Post that while she’s heartened by the fact that some GOP House members are willing to defend the program against Trump, she doesn’t expect her legislation to reach the House floor, given that Republicans run the chamber. As of noon Wednesday, no Senate Republicans had signed Coons and Heinrich’s letter defending the agency. A spokesman for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Along with Fetterman, Heinrich and Houlahan, four other members of Congress – Reps. Gwen Moore (D-Wisconsin), Seth Magaziner (D-Rhode Island), Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) and Kevin Kiley (R-California) – are AmeriCorps alumni. Kiley, the only Republican alumnus in the House, did not respond to a request for comment on the agency’s future. Spokespeople for Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy (Louisiana) and Susan Collins (Maine), who have long supported the program, also did not respond to requests for comment on Trump’s cuts.
A service agency that goes back decades
AmeriCorps was created in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, who also merged Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), an anti-poverty program established in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, with the newly formed agency.
AmeriCorps has three main branches: VISTA; State and National, which provides grants to local and national organizations and agencies that offer direct community services like after-school tutoring; and the National Civilian Community Corps, or NCCC, a residential program that assigns Americans as young as 18 to community service projects across the country, such as disaster preparedness and environmental conservation.
AmeriCorps NCCC was shuttered on April 15, days after members of DOGE, which stands for the Department of Government Efficiency, visited agency headquarters in Washington. Those serving in the programs were told that they were being sent home and placed on administrative leave until April 30. As of Monday, all 756 NCCC service members have been sent home, former NCCC national director Kate Raftery said.
Ending the program, particularly in the middle of the service term, is “heartless, cruel [and] counterproductive,” said Joel Berg, chief executive of Hunger Free America, a nationwide anti-hunger nonprofit organization. He added that NCCC service members lost their jobs and housing on the same day.
Berg, a former Clinton administration official involved in AmeriCorps’ creation, said the agency’s programs are key to creating the next generation of civil service leaders.
Raftery said NCCC leadership had been asked to consider a slate of options – reduction of resources, reduction of staff – to “determine if [the NCCC] could move forward either more efficiently, more effectively, but not to lose the impact of the service.”
“It’s not the end,” Raftery added. “We are looking at a review of everything.”
Beyond the Beltway
AmeriCorps’ alumni network extends to dozens of state, city and county governments, stretching back to VISTA’s beginnings in the 1960s, according to Voices for National Service, a coalition of local and national service organizations.
Notable VISTA and AmeriCorps alumni include Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer (D), former West Virginia governor Jay Rockefeller (D), Virginia House Majority Leader Charniele L. Herring (D) and retired Minnesota Supreme Court justice Paul H. Anderson.
Anderson, 81, joined VISTA in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, fresh out of law school.
Anderson, who describes himself as a “farm kid” from Minnesota with Republican roots, spent eight weeks training for the VISTA program in majority-Black Southeast Washington. For the first time in his life, Anderson was a minority in the community in which he resided, he said. During that period, he lived with a 65-year-old Black woman named “Mrs. Kennedy” and witnessed a community plagued by employment discrimination, occupational segregation and unequal pay.
After his training ended, Anderson was sent to New Haven, Connecticut. There, he provided legal help to residents on matters such as tenants’ rights and community organizing.
Anderson said he watched how disillusionment with racism transformed one of his clients – 35-year-old Warren Kimbro – from a community leader into a convicted murderer, charged in the 1969 killing of a suspected Black Panther police informant.
“It changed me and it shaped me and made me who I am, and quite frankly, made me a much better justice, because I had a much better sense of the community and humanity,” Anderson said of his time in the program.
“When I was on the court, I was always focused on the question, ‘What is the right thing to do?’” he said. “Some of that comes from serving in VISTA, because a lot of things that are really harmful can be just.”