DOGE Cuts Pull AmeriCorps Volunteers Off of Disaster Relief Jobs

AmeriCorps, the US federal agency that oversees volunteerism and service work, abruptly pulled teams of young people out of a variety of community service projects across the country on Tuesday. The work stoppage was due to cuts attributed to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, volunteers were informed Tuesday afternoon.

WIRED spoke with seven workers with the National Civilian Community Corps, better known as AmeriCorps NCCC, who say that they were told to stop working on projects ranging from rebuilding homes destroyed in storms, to readying a summer camp for kids, to distributing supplies for hurricane recovery, and prepare to immediately travel back to their homes.

Aadharsh Jeyasakthivel, a 23-year-old from Boston, was serving at a county food bank in rural Pennsylvania when he and his fellow volunteers were suddenly pulled from service.

“Non Americorps ppl are still distributing,” he wrote to WIRED in a Signal message, sending a photo of yellow-vested volunteers working on a line in a parking lot.

The AmeriCorps NCCC program was established under the Clinton administration by the National and Community Service Trust Act, signed in 1993. Each year, it recruits 2,200 people between the ages of 18 to 26 to serve in teams working across the country on different projects. Some volunteers also work directly alongside staff from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Forest Service, as part of smaller programs that are run within the NCCC. Graduates of the program get access to an award to help pay off federal student loans.

“In alignment with the Trump-Vance Administration priorities and Executive Order 14222, ‘Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Cost Efficiency Initiative,’ AmeriCorps NCCC is working within new operational parameters that impact the program’s ability to sustain program operations,” reads an email sent April 15 to NCCC volunteers seen by WIRED. A separate memo, also seen by WIRED, sent to workers signed by NCCC national director Ken Goodson, releases volunteers from the program and informs them that their benefits will be discontinued April 30. Volunteers’ “early departure,” that memo states, “results from program circumstances beyond your control.” (Workers who had completed at least 15 percent of the program, the first email notes, would be eligible for a prorated education award.)

AmeriCorps did not respond to a request for comment.

In early April, an AmeriCorps representative told Politico Playbook that DOGE staff “are currently working at AmeriCorps headquarters and the agency is supporting their requests.” A day later, The Washington Post reported that the agency was considering a 50 percent cut to its budget. In 2024, the NCCC program made up $37.7 million of the agency’s $1.2 billion budget.

The volunteer cuts, which included young people who told WIRED they were tasked with making forests more resilient to wildfires and helping out FEMA staff at the agency’s headquarters, come just weeks before the official start of hurricane season.

“NCCC and FEMA Corps represent a critical flexible workforce that is able to support disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery efforts across the country,” says Samantha Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. “The loss of the people who make up these programs will be felt immediately, and especially in the next major disaster.”

AmeriCorps and the NCCC program have come under scrutiny in past years. Last year, the Government Accountability Office found that AmeriCorps needed to take more steps to prevent fraud in its grantmaking, while a 2017 Office of Inspector General report found that the NCCC program, which provides volunteers room and board, clothing, and any specialized training they might need, was four to eight times more expensive than other AmeriCorps programs.

Volunteers who spoke to WIRED said they and their team members had gotten job training in a variety of disciplines during their deployment, from data management to forklift operation to wildland firefighting certification.

“These programs are an important pathway for young people looking to have careers in emergency management and disaster work more broadly, so impacts will be felt in that way too,” Montano says.

AmeriCorps has historically been a target for some right-wing media figures and organizations, including Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, and the Heritage Foundation. The first Trump administration’s 2017 budget proposal attempted to slash funding for the agency altogether.

The long-term fate of the NCCC program is not immediately clear. An informational page on applying to the Fall 2025 cohort is still active on the AmeriCorps website, but a separate application portal lists no positions accepting applications.

For volunteers unexpectedly traveling home on Thursday, the loss cuts deep.

“I understand that the [Trump administration] has been cutting and gutting so many important programs, but I want people to know about what they did to Americorps. For many of us, this was our way to pay for college, to get away from home, to figure out what to do with our lives, it was a big step,” says 19-year-old Coloradan Noe Felix Burns, who was rebuilding houses in Philadelphia damaged by 2021’s Hurricane Ida. “And they just ripped it out from under us without even a two-week’s notice.”