AmeriCorps loss would be ‘devastating’

An aspiring counselor, Jasmine Bensinger wanted to gain experience working with people in low-income neighborhoods.

At 24, Bensinger is doing just that, leading groups of college students who volunteer at Apopka’s Hope CommUnity Center, which helps families in the immigrant community. As an AmeriCorps volunteer, she’s earning a scholarship in exchange for her service as she completes the counselor education program at the University of Central Florida.

But President Donald Trump’s budget has raised questions about the future of

AmeriCorps and other community service programs. His proposal calls for eliminating 19 agencies, including the Corporation for National and Community Service, which encompasses programs such as AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, which is geared toward people 55 and older.

Shuttering the agency is intended to avoid adding to the deficit and return “responsibility to fund national service and volunteerism to the private and non-profit sectors,” according to a document justifying the move to Congress.

Though Trump’s proposal faces widespread pushback in Congress, his budget plan has sparked a flurry of concern among volunteers and the organizations they serve.

A total of $10.3 million has flowed into Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola counties during the past year, including scholarships given to program participants, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service. Right now, 1,330 people serve in the four counties. Many of them support schools as mentors or even lead classrooms in Teach for America.

In some cases, AmeriCorps provides funding directly to organizations, like the Hope CommUnity Center. AmeriCorps also provides living expenses and benefits for volunteers in other programs.

Full-time members are eligible for scholarships of up to $5,815 annually that they can use for future educational costs or to repay student loans, as well as stipends for living expenses and health insurance.

Run by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, the Hope CommUnity Center uses AmeriCorps volunteers like Bensinger to tutor students, teach adult literacy classes, staff low-income health clinics and more. The organization’s work touches the lives of thousands of people, including many farmworkers and immigrants in northwest Orange County, said Sister Ann Kendrick, who handles community relations.

Losing the support from AmeriCorps, she said, “would be devastating.”

The AmeriCorps program, Kendrick said, is an investment in young adults as well as the people they serve.

“Their lives are transformed,” Kendrick said of the volunteers. “They find themselves. They discover their passion. They also discover the root causes of poverty and racism and the things that are so damaging to our community.”

Bensinger works with college students on school breaks who stay with host families to share their culture and experiences. She hopes they’ll return to their campuses as advocates for disadvantaged communities.

Her other responsibilities have included tutoring elementary school kids after school, teaching an English class for mothers and assisting a parenting class. She’s honing her Spanish skills — she studied the language in school but isn’t fluent.

Losing the opportunity to serve in AmeriCorps, Bensinger said, “would be a shame for young people.”

“They don’t always want to go right into career or right into college,” she said. Students can join AmeriCorps when they’re as young as 16 if they have a high school diploma.

Other organizations that rely on volunteers funded through the Corporation for National and Community Service agreed the program is integral to Central Florida.

“It would be a quiet catastrophe if this went way,” said Ray Larsen, vice president for collective impact at Heart of Florida United Way.

The organizations’ AmeriCorps programs include Pathways to Success, which provide mentors to students at Orange County schools that largely serve low-income communities.

“I don’t think it’s overdramatic to say they would not have graduated from high school if not for the support given to our AmeriCorps members,” Larsen said.

In addition, the district has 68 volunteers from City Year Orlando, an AmeriCorps program, who act as “pseudo-mentors,” assisting in classrooms and tutoring students.

“It’s that extra adult that’s guiding our kids in our schools,” said Jesus Jara, the district’s deputy superintendent.

Another program, Teach for America, places college graduates for two years apiece at low-income schools that districts often struggle to staff.

Corps members will lead 32 Orange classrooms when students return in August, said Lauren Chianese, executive director for Teach for America in Orlando. There are also 20 program alumni in the county who are teachers or school administrators.

The scholarships available through AmeriCorps are key, Chianese said, because many Teach for America members come from disadvantaged backgrounds themselves.

“These are leaders from low-income backgrounds,” she said. “We think it’s critically important for kids to see models of people that look like them. Without these educational awards, it would be really hard for someone to move to a city or rural area to become a teacher.”

“It would be a quiet catastrophe if this [AmeriCorps] went way.” Ray Larsen, vice president for collective impact at Heart of Florida United Way