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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Federal Cuts to Service Programs Would Be Felt in MO

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Friday, July 17, 2015   

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Proposed cuts to federally supported volunteer programs would hit home for communities across Missouri, according to supporters of the programs.

Wendy Spencer heads the Corporation for National and Community Service, which operates AmeriCorps, the Senior Corps and other community-building volunteer initiatives. Whether it's helping out in overcrowded classrooms or understaffed health clinics, or rebuilding cities such as Joplin after natural disasters, Spencer said, participants in these programs gain as much as they give.

"We know now from research that when you volunteer, it actually helps you get a job," she said. "So those people who are committing a year of their life to service, they're gaining skills, both soft and hard skills. They're learning about needs in the community."

Congress has proposed cutting $500 million from the corporation's budget, which would cut the number of available spots for AmeriCorps volunteers by nearly 40,000, or roughly half. The Republican-led proposal is part of the battle over how to respond to the return of automatic spending cuts known as sequestration.

Spencer argued that programs such as AmeriCorps save communities money, citing the disaster relief work in Joplin as an example.

"Hundreds of AmeriCorps members were able to serve and provide the leadership to receive volunteers, to receive donations, and make sure that those volunteers were deployed to the right type of activity, and engaged," she said, "and those donations were used at the highest and best use."

Today, close to 6,600 AmeriCorps volunteers are serving in Missouri.

In addition to the other benefits of volunteering, AmeriCorps members earn an education award which can go toward future education costs or to pay back student debt. In a time of skyrocketing college costs, Spencer said, it's a combination that resonates.

"While we have 75,000 opportunities today for AmeriCorps members to serve, we have hundreds of thousands of applications," she said. "So we are literally turning down young and old who want to serve their community."

Since 1994, nearly 1 million Americans have provided more than 1 billion hours of service through AmeriCorps programs. This year marks the 50th anniversary of VISTA, which is now part of AmeriCorps, and was created to be the domestic version of the Peace Corps.


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