6 days ago
Lost aid abroad, prayers at home: Federal cuts gut Baltimore relief groups
Bill O'Keefe remembers taking board members to see a Catholic Relief Services program in northern Kenya that had helped provide a source of water during a multi-year drought. Having access to clean water meant that unlike other villages, a woman told them, they lost no children during the drought.
'It made me feel good, of course, to be associated with the project that was where children weren't dying,' said O'Keefe, an executive vice president of the relief group. 'But [now] they're going to die, because the project isn't going to continue, and it's not going to be able to expand to those other villages.
'So a part of my heart is buried in northern Kenya,' he said, 'and it just makes me sad to think about it.'
In Baltimore, home to the headquarters of CRS, Lutheran World Relief and other global humanitarian groups, the Trump administration's slashing of foreign aid programs has been particularly devastating. Still reeling from the dismantling earlier this year of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had funded much of their work including in Kenya, the groups learned more recently that tens of millions of dollars more would be cut — this time to programs that feed children and help farmers in developing countries.
Faith-based groups said they've had to lay off staff in Baltimore, and are bracing for even more funding losses as Trump's proposed budget makes its way through Congress. Maryland fiscal analysts have estimated the state could lose more than $400 million, including funds that go toward low-income housing and energy assistance, if the budget is approved.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson said in an email that 'President Trump is putting America First, and at USDA we are ensuring our programs align with the president's agenda to make America safer, stronger and more prosperous.'
The agency did not respond to a question about the criteria used to determine which of the current grants were cut or kept.
Amid the blows to Baltimore's good-works community, Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori will offer a Mass later this month to thank three Catholic groups that have suffered government cutbacks, uncertainty over future funding or both.
'I wanted to lift up the good work Catholic Charities and CRS and St. Vincent de Paul are doing,' Lori said, 'to celebrate the good work and the good people who carry forth the mission and the great impact they have on the vulnerable.
'They will continue to do this despite the budgetary cuts that are coming from Washington and the budgetary limitations that are potentially afoot in the state of Maryland,' he said.
Bill McCarthy, executive director of Catholic Charities, said the 'Mass for the Preservation of Peace and Justice' should provide a needed morale boost. It will be held on June 11 at 7:30 pm at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, and will be followed by a dessert reception.
'The work is very hard, particularly in this environment, and you get a little down,' said McCarthy, who will be retiring July 1. 'You can feel lost or unsupported.'
McCarthy, who has headed the state's largest private provider of human services for 16 years, said the group lost $2 million in immigrant services funding earlier this year and had to lay of 10 staff members, half of the group that worked in that area. With Trump's budget calling for cuts in programs like Medicaid, Catholic Charities is bracing for the ripple effects of people potentially losing health coverage.
'It's all interconnected,' McCarthy said.
When people lose benefits in one area, such as health care or housing, they then tend to need help in other areas as well, such as the food banks and mental health services that Catholic Charities provides.
With so many humanitarian groups based in Baltimore, McCarthy said, at least there's kinship.
'There's a sense of solidarity in the community,' he said.
Catholic Relief lost 11 of 13 grants to feed schoolchildren in impoverished countries as a result of cutbacks to the USDA's McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition program. Both CRS and the Lutheran group lost funding in a second USDA program, Food for Progress, which helps farmers increase their yields and improve their crop sales.
The total amount of terminated grants is hard to calculate, CRS officials said, given that they generally extend over several years, so some of the money has already been spent.
But it is sizeable: In fiscal 2024, for example, CRS received $27.5 million to feed schoolchildren in Guinea Bissau in West African. In previous years, it has received similar amounts for programs in countries including Burundi, Guatemala, Lesotho, Madagascar, Laos, Togo and Sierra Leone.
Lutheran World Relief confirmed that it lost a Food for Progress grant for Tanzania but declined to comment further. According to the USDA website, the group had been awarded just over $35 million in fiscal 2024 to address food insecurity and help transform Tanzania's poultry system from subsistence to commercial. A Lutheran World Relief spokeswoman said two other programs were also cut, including one in Central America that was slated to conclude this year.
Catholic Relief lost three Food for Progress grants, in Haiti, Uganda and Madagascar, O'Keefe said.
The USDA spokesperson said the agency had done a 'thorough review' of both programs, leading to the termination of 17 McGovern-Dole and 27 Food for Progress grants 'that are not in alignment with the foreign assistance objectives of the Trump administration.' The agency kept 30 McGovern-Dole and 14 Food for Progress programs, totaling more than $1 billion in funding, the spokesperson said.
While the USDA is taking applications for fiscal 2025 funding for the two programs, Trump's proposed budget eliminates both.
As with other federal cuts, recipients said they did not get much explanation for why their grants were terminated, or much time to wind down the work.
CRS said the McGovern-Dole cuts would deprive about 780,000 kids in 11 countries of what can be their only reliable meal each day. The program, named in honor of the former U.S. senators who worked to eradicate childhood hunger, helps improve school attendance, academic performance and the children's health and capacity to learn, according to the USDA, which in fiscal 2024 committed $248 million to the program.
Both USDA foreign food programs assist U.S. farmers as well, the agency said, with each buying hundreds of millions of dollars of their grains, beans, oils and other commodities for shipment to the recipient countries.
CRS said it's had to layoff thousands of staff around the world, but did not know how many were based in the group's Baltimore headquarters.
Other charitable groups that work locally said they could be affected by proposed federal cuts to programs such as Medicaid and housing assistance.
'Right now, we are just holding our breath,' said John Schiavone, president and CEO of St. Vincent de Paul. 'It's wait-and-see for us.'
Schiavone, who estimates the group gets about 60% of its funding from the federal government, said his group went through 'a lot of chaos and concern' this spring when funds were frozen, such as those supporting homeless shelters that it operates, and now is anxiously awaiting the outcome of Trump's budgetary proposals.
Lori said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops continues to advocate to Trump that he maintain funding for the humanitarian groups. Lori, who serves as the vice president of the bishops' group, said the Baltimore archdiocese also is seeking to help the helpers who are or will be out of work as a result of federal cuts.
'Anytime people lose gainful employment, it is of course a great concern to me,' Lori said. 'It is particularly painful when it is people doing humanitarian work.'
The groups say the sudden way that cuts have landed, and the uncertainty of what's still to come have made for what O'Keefe calls a 'painful and difficult' several months — even for a group that is used to being buffeted by national and international events.
'We've made it through economic crises and faced the challenges of adjusting to a post-9/11 world,' said O'Keefe, who has been with CRS since 1987.
'But this is like an asteroid hitting the planet without any warning,' he said. 'So it's been a huge adjustment. The sudden and unplanned nature of this has made the impact on those we serve even more severe.'
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