New Massive Federal Cuts Will Now Impact Eastern Iowa Town’s Programs

You may need to check if your kid's summer camp is still happening.

A press release from the city of Davenport says that a sudden decision on a federal level to cut funding to the AmeriCorps program will impact the city's grants and programs.

The city says that Volunteer Iowa (the state agency that works directly with the city of Davenport) received notification on Friday, April 25th that they had to close out all AmeriCorps grant programs within 14 days.

This impacts Parks & Rec programs, including summer camps and Davenport Junior Theatre, and outside partners: Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Mississippi Valley, Common Chord, and the Putnam Museum and Science Center.

Besides grants taking a hit with this cut, the city is losing manpower too. 870 AmeriCorps service members worked with all those programs over the 14 years that AmeriCorps has worked with Davenport. Besides the grant money, ending the program also results in 22 service members being laid off, including 6 other people who were about to start summer contracts.

The AmeriCorps grant funding plus the city's match for this grant year amounted to about $920,000.

Jay Justin, CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Mississippi Valley, said in the press release:

Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Mississippi Valley has benefited from hundreds of AmeriCorps service members over the years, helping recruit and engage new mentors, support our current matches and families, conducting background checks and references for new mentors, and coordinating match activities that help grow match relationships. They make our organization stronger, as well as our community and our country.

Tyson Danner, Common Chord Executive Director, said in the press release:

The AmeriCorps program not only aided Common Chord in improving our community through music, but also better equipped members for a lifetime of service to their community and country. The shortsighted and foolish decision to end this valuable program will cause direct harm to our community, weakening the impact that nonprofits and city services create for all citizens.

Nationally, about $400 million in AmeriCorps funding was immediately cut and nearly 30,000 members that helped out with over 1,000 programs.