Philly lost $10.2 million in the latest round of DOGE funding cuts to AmeriCorps

The cuts targeted eleven education programs, including CityYear, Teach for America, and Joyful Readers.

PowerCorps members work at the corner of Potter and F Streets in Kensington on Nov. 1, 2018. PowerCorps is one eleven AmeriCorps programs in Philadelphia that had its federal funding cut during DOGE's probe into the agency.Read moreRACHEL WISNIEWSKI / File Photograph

Published May 7, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

President Donald Trump’s administration has pulled close to $10.2 million in federal grants from AmeriCorps projects in Philadelphia, jeopardizing the future of 11 community service programs that help the city’s young people with literacy, college readiness, and career preparation.

The cuts are part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) systematic dismantling of AmeriCorps over allegations of financial mismanagement, and have drawn bipartisan ire. Volunteers were forced to stop work immediately on projects across the United States that ranged from preventing fires in Wyoming’s national forests to helping homeless teens in Wisconsin find stable housing.

Pennsylvania had over $22.2 million of federal AmeriCorps funding pulled, according to The Inquirer’s analysis.

In Philadelphia, most of the AmeriCorps programs facing cuts work with the city’s charter and public schools, which already face a budget shortfall. Principals and nonprofit leaders are now worried that students will miss out on the individualized attention that could keep them from falling behind.

Philly’s AmeriCorps leaders say they have no idea why their programs were targeted. They also face a Faustian dilemma: jeopardize future funding by operating in violation of the cuts, or pause their programs and put the communities they serve at risk.

AmeriCorps was created by the Clinton administration in 1993 as a domestic version of the Peace Corps, offering modest living stipends and a higher education grant in exchange for 10 months of full-time community service. DOGE began hacking away at the agency in mid-April.

First, 750 National Civilian Community Corps members were recalled from posts on disaster preparedness and anti-poverty projects. Soon after, DOGE placed 85% of AmeriCorps federal employees on administrative leave pending imminent layoffs. Then, DOGE ordered the agency to claw back $400 million in grants to over 1,000 community service organizations across the U.S.

Some states, like Kansas and Maine, are without any federal funding. All were told that their programs no longer aligned with the Trump administration’s priorities, according to emails reviewed by the Washington Post.

Most of the funding DOGE cut from Pennsylvania was managed by Penn Serve, the bipartisan commission that oversees 28 of the state’s AmeriCorps initiatives. DOGE cut grants to all but two of Penn Serve’s programs; cuts include United Way food pantries in the Lehigh Valley, peer support for veterans experiencing mental illness in Butler, and literacy assistance for Pittsburgh elementary schoolers.

Gov. Josh Shapiro has joined Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and 25 state attorneys general to sue the Trump administration for bypassing Congress to gut AmeriCorps. A coalition of 15 community service organizations is also suing the Trump administration over the constitutionality of the cuts, including the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey and Partners for Campus and Community Engagement, a Harrisburg-based organization that lost over $2.5 million in federal AmeriCorps funding.

Here today, forced to leave tomorrow

Brianna Allen, 23, moved to Philadelphia from Louisiana in August to serve as a college and career coach at Overbrook High School. She earned $1,600 a month to help juniors and seniors navigate college applications, financial aid forms, and job searches. After learning her AmeriCorps program lost funding, Allen was told her last day would be May 1 — coincidentally National College Decision Day.

Some of her students, Allen said, had to make the biggest decisions of their lives alone.

“There were a lot of students that originally didn’t think that they could go to college or that [the Community College of Philadelphia] was their only option because of a low GPA, and now they’re going to La Salle or Kutztown,” said Allen. “Even if they’re set I still worry about them … I got to help them find the path but now I can’t see them start on it.”

Allen got her AmeriCorps placement through the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development (PHENND), which lost an $805,642 grant to support five college and career coaches in West Philadelphia high schools and a separate mentorship program for first generation college students.

The mentorship program is “dead in the water” without federal funding, said PHENND’s executive director Hillary Kane, who also had to a lay off a full-time staff member because of the cuts. The nonprofit’s college and career coaches will likely operate with a diminished capacity next school year.

“It looks like they just pulled stuff out of a hat,” said Kane.

City Year lost $3.75 million — the most of any Philadelphia program — that supported 125 student success coaches. The coaches work one-on-one with pupils at 13 area public schools to increase attendance alongside math and English proficiency. Student success coaches will be able to finish out the school year despite the cuts, a City Year spokesperson said in a statement.

Philly’s Teach for America program faces a similar bind: The program lost a $148,000 federal grant that would’ve helped place 160 teachers in the School District of Philadelphia for the next academic year, filling just over half of all known vacancies.

Those educators will still be able to work thanks to other funding sources. “Beyond that, the path is a bit unknown for us,” Anna Shurak, Teach for America’s Greater Philadelphia director, said at a news conference Monday.

David Weinstein, Joyful Readers’ executive director, said he’s doing everything he can to ensure the organization’s 50 literacy tutors are able to finish out the school year in their 18 partner schools. The volunteers receive $2,100 a month in exchange for meeting with elementary school readers daily to work on phonics.

The $833,490 DOGE pulled makes up 40% of Joyful Readers’ operating budget, Weinstein said. The organization was planning to expand to 22 Philadelphia area schools next year, according to Weinstein, and was waiting to hear back on a $1.3 million grant when Joyful Readers’ funding was terminated.

“The line is that we don’t align with agency priorities,” Weinstein said, exasperated, in a phone interview with The Inquirer. “Since when is kids learning how to read not a national priority?”

North Philly’s Mastery Clymer Elementary School has had Joyful Readers tutors for the last three years.

“Our students that are the furthest behind are the ones we place with Joyful Readers,” said Heather Scheg, the school’s principal. Most of them are able to read on grade level within a year of working with a tutor, she said.

A similar program could cost Mastery Clymer around $160,000, said Scheg. If the Joyful Readers are unable to return, she said, it would be difficult for the school’s struggling readers to get the right kind of instruction.

“It’s almost impossible for a teacher to meet all of the needs in a classroom,” Scheg said. “Our students have been underserved for years. We need programs like this.”

‘A real smack in the face’

DOGE’s cuts have also upended the lives of some AmeriCorps members who count on the stipends and job training to start fresh. AmeriCorps members are ineligible to receive unemployment benefits because they’re classified as volunteers.

“It’s a real smack in the face,” said Julia Hillengas, the executive director of PowerCorps, which lost $861,408 in federal funding.

PowerCorps provides people aged 18 to 30 with $15 an hour for full-time job training on public works projects, like planting and maintaining trees or rehabbing recreation centers.

Over half of PowerCorps’ participants have been involved with the criminal justice system, Hillengas said, and most live in neighborhoods with a high concentration of gun violence. Almost all of them, according to Hillengas, are able to get jobs working with the city, in the trades, or at similar nonprofits.

“These are folks who are, if they’re not employed, they’re going to be in poverty. They need this income,” said Hillengas.

The City of Philadelphia has a financial assistance fund for AmeriCorps volunteers who face hardship during their service year. Volunteers are limited to applying for up to $500 per person.

“The emergency funds are designed to be low barrier and delivered to qualifying recipients as quickly as possible,” a city spokesperson said in a statement.

Conita Pierson, 65, is a Joyful Readers literacy tutor who uses the program as a way to stay busy in retirement. She spends her eight-hour shifts at James G. Blaine School in Strawberry Mansion juggling lesson planning and teacher check-ins with about 16 student reading sessions.

A former children’s librarian, Pierson said the work is fulfilling. The $1,860 a month stipend, she said, doesn’t hurt, either. It helps her pay bills and “enjoy life a little more.”

“I’m where I’m supposed to be right now. I’m doing something I’m good at,” Pierson said of her AmeriCorps placement. “If Joyful Readers isn’t around, the students are going to ask why, and I won’t be there to explain. It breaks my heart.”