https://vtdigger.org/2025/04/30/feds-cut-more-americorps-programs-jeopardizing-200-positions-in-vermont/
VT Digger, Carly Berlin, April 30, 2025 The $2.4 million in terminated Vermont grants funded positions that focused on “everything from housing placement services, food security, to job training, to after school programming” and flood recovery, said Philip Kolling, who oversees AmeriCorps programs in the state.
Soon after floodwaters inundated Montpelier in July 2023, the city tasked its Parks and Trees Department with running a central hub for flood response. That meant Marek Zajac, an AmeriCorps member serving with the department, spent long hours under a tent in the capitol’s downtown. The now 32-year-old kept track of which neighbors needed their homes mucked and gutted — and dispatched available volunteers.
With City Hall flooded, “there was nowhere to go to interact with the city — except for us,” Zajac said. “We became both an emotional support…and a way to find help.”
Now, Zajac’s job — which involves managing street trees and a community farm when the city isn’t experiencing a disaster — is on pause. That’s due to the latest round of federal cuts to the independent government agency that funds the service position they have held for nearly three years.
Last week, AmeriCorps began terminating nearly $400 million in grants across the country that funded thousands of jobs like Zajac’s, including about $2.4 million in funding for service positions in Vermont. Read the full story here.
