01-05-2025
West Virginia declines to join nationwide lawsuit over cancellation of AmeriCorps
FAIRMONT, (WBOY) — In West Virginia, 250 AmeriCorps members lost their jobs over the weekend due to cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), yet the state has declined to join a lawsuit against the Trump Administration over the cancellation of that funding.
The Tygart Valley United Way said earlier this week that DOGE's budget cuts would have a direct effect on its AmeriCorps members, as 80% of its Flipside Afterschool Program was employed by AmeriCorps members.
The Flipside Afterschool Program provides one-on-one interventions, support, and tutoring for fifth through eighth-grade students at four middle schools in Marion County. Staff of the program were notified of these cuts only 4 weeks before the end of the school year.
12 News spoke with Shannon Yost, Flipside Afterschool Director at the United Way, on how these cuts will impact students of the program.
'That puts not only an undue hardship on our Afterschool Program and us having to scramble and figure out what the next four weeks are going to look like because we don't want service to be interrupted for these students who need help Afterschool, who need a safe place to go after school. We don't want this to affect them; however, that's a majority of our staffing is AmeriCorps,' said Yost.
DOGE cuts AmeriCorps programs across West Virginia
Thirteen members of AmeriCorps worked with Tygart Valley United Way directly and immediately lost their contracts as the cuts hit.
'There are six key areas of AmeriCorps service, from environmental stewardship to financial stability, to education, to veteran and military families, so not only is our program being affected by these cuts, but 32,000 individuals have suddenly lost their positions. Americorps members are not considered employees of the organizations with which they served, so they are not eligible for any sort of unemployment compensation,' Yost said.
Most states lost the entirety of their AmeriCorps programs, though Yost said that West Virginia was 'fortunate enough' to keep a few. Nationally, 1,000 programs were terminated due to DOGE's cuts.
'This is not an abuse of funding, these are members who are working for very low wages. They are just making enough to get by, and who are the people that go into southern West Virginia when it floods and help with cleanup efforts? They are working with veterans and their families to make sure that they have all of the resources they need. They are answering the phones at our United Way when people call the 211 line and need resources to pay their bills,' said Yost.
Yost is encouraging the public to contact Congress and local legislators to help in pursuing change for the fate of AmeriCorps.
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