How can I help, and where do you need me?
For the last 31 years, more than a million Americans have either uttered those exact words or exemplified them by taking action with AmeriCorps, the federally funded superhero program that sends volunteers to assist with disaster relief, tutor and mentor students in struggling schools, support environmental literacy, deliver meals to the elderly, and so much more.
Those volunteers range from teenagers to grandparents and come from all across the country and from all walks of life: urban and rural, affluent and poor, college-educated and GED recipients. They’re usually paid less than minimum wage — usually for a year, sometimes longer — simply to help Americans in need.
The 67-word AmeriCorps pledge begins like this: “I will get things done for America — to make our people safer, smarter, and healthier.’’
And now President Trump and his spreadsheet warriors at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency are threatening to gut an agency that runs one of the most special programs in the federal government.
The administration recently placed hundreds of AmeriCorps staffers on paid administrative leave, and informed National Civilian Community Corps members that they were being discharged from their service years early. NCCC is a branch of AmeriCorps that deploys 18- to 26-year-olds all over the country to provide disaster response following hurricanes, blizzards, floods, and wildfires.
It’s still unclear what that means for the rest of AmeriCorps, which provides volunteers to nonprofits in every state. Last year, more than 200,000 AmeriCorps members were assigned to more than 36,000 locations across the country. In Rhode Island, 2,900 corps members worked at schools, food banks, homeless shelters, health clinics, youth centers, veterans facilities, and other nonprofit and faith-based organizations, according to its most recent annual report.
The work those volunteers do every single day is vital, and urgent, but they’re not just improving the communities they serve. They’re improving their own lives.
I know because I’m a former AmeriCorps member.
As a 20-year-old, I was at risk of falling through the cracks. My parents were struggling with their own challenges, and I was a college dropout with too much debt and too few options. I knew I wanted to be a journalist, but I found myself talking about writing far more than practicing the craft.
Luckily my older sister already had a life-changing experience as an AmeriCorps VISTA — Volunteers in Service to America — and she encouraged me to apply to the program, too. I’d get paid a little, grow up a bit, gain some experience, and by the end of a service year, I’d be given a federally funded education stipend that would help me go back to college.
That’s how I landed in Providence.
I joined City Year, an amazing program where young people in bright red jackets, khakis, and Timberland boots — the uniform has changed over the years — serve as tutors, mentors, and role models in urban schools. City Year is now in 30 cities across the globe, but Providence was its second site, behind Boston.
As a VISTA, my role was to recruit volunteers, communicate about the program, and assist with development — like fund-raising — but I was lucky to spend time in the schools as well. It’s also where I met my partner, Nora, who left a job in Senator Ted Kennedy’s office to give back to her home state, and then went off to Harvard for graduate school.
Through City Year and AmeriCorps, I learned the value of hard work, how to be reliable, how to function in a professional setting, and how to collaborate. The experience made me a better person, leader, and employee.
The data says I’m not alone.
In 2017, the Corporation for National and Community Service — which oversees AmeriCorps — released a study that found nine out of 10 alumni reported that their experience improved their ability to solve problems, and eight out of 10 said they were confident they could create a plan to address a community issue and get others to care about it.
The same study showed that 70 percent of alumni said AmeriCorps helped them achieve their educational goals, and 80 percent said the program advanced and benefited their career path.
We don’t know what AmeriCorps’ future looks like in a Trump administration, but the president, members of Congress, and the public should know that this program is one of America’s best-kept secrets.
Mayors all across the country love to talk about how there isn’t a Democratic or Republican way to fill potholes, plow the roads, and pick up trash. They’re right, and the same concept applies to AmeriCorps.
Let’s not allow partisanship get in the way of getting things done for America.
Dan McGowan can be reached at dan.mcgowan@globe.com. Follow him @danmcgowan.
