photo credit: Courtesy of GrizzlyCorpsCurrent map of workplace sites for GrizzlyCorps fellows in California.
Tens of thousands of people – both in the United States and around the world – have had their lives upended as the second Trump administration has slashed it’s way through federal agencies.
Among the high profile moves made by Elon Musk and the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” were major cuts to foreign aid agencies, as well as the US Forest, and National Weather services.
Also thrown into chaos: AmeriCorps, the public service fellowship program with over 200,000 employees and volunteers.
When federal funding for AmeriCorps was abruptly yanked in late April, fellows across the country were placed on indeterminate leave, including two AmeriCorps fellows based in the North Bay.
Some fellows in California were able to quickly return to their work, at first with funding scraped together from other sources.
Melia Zimmerman said the news of her program’s abrupt de-funding came, like it did for so many, as a shock, but not a surprise.
“Wednesday night we got an email and it said…as of tonight you can no longer work,” Zimmerman said. “We are no longer an AmericaCorps program, but we are working as hard as we can to transition you to hourly workers…I got really lucky I had a vacation plan for that weekend. So I was like, ‘okay, they’ll figure it out. I’m just going to try not to think about it.'”
Zimmerman is a California Climate Action Corps fellow working with Fire Safe Sonoma.
Her work focuses mostly on community wildfire preparation, disseminating information and helping communities get “fire-wise”.
“So we…had the wildfire and earthquake expo…we have a presentation on ready-set-go for renters,” Zimmerman said. “Because coming in as a fellow, me and my co-fellows noticed a lot of the information is catered towards homeowners. I don’t own a home, so why not make it applicable to renters?”
Like Zimmerman, Sarah LaFazia’s work focuses on wildfire education and preparation.
“I am helping support a program that has an emphasis on getting people into the fire service and doing that hands-on work,” LaFazia said.
LaFazia is a GrizzlyCorps fellow. GrizzlyCorps is an AmeriCorps program run by UC Berkeley, focusing on fire resilience and regenerative agriculture in rural communities.
LaFazia handles administration and outreach for Fire Foundry. That’s a fire services training program run through the College of Marin.
She helps set up events like “broom pull” days to help clear invasive and highly flammable French Broom plants.
Like Zimmerman, LaFazia said her temporary layoff, for lack of a better term, also came at an unexpected moment.
“We had just finished our last work retreat, which was at one of the host sites in Santa Barbara,” LaFazia said. “So, we took this like ten plus hour train ride down, and on the train ride back, we got an email at like 8:00 P.M. basically saying like AmeriCorps terminated our program, and our funding has been cut. We were all just like, what does that mean?”
Zimmerman and LaFazia’s experiences are characteristic of the chaos and uncertainty wrought by DOGE’s clear out of federal workers and federally funded positions.
Some of those layoffs have been reversed, when it became clear that critical federal efforts, like bird flu response, had to remain operational.
Other mass layoffs have been challenged in the courts, including the cuts to AmeriCorps programs.
Zimmerman and LaFazia said they both were able to return to work after just a few days; with funding for their positions cobbled together from other sources after federal grant funds were frozen.
But not before, LaFazia said, a very stressful and confusing few days of unemployment.
“It’s not really an announcement that you make at work,” LaFazia said. “Like [saying] ‘hello everyone, like this person might not be working with us but we also don’t know.'”
Both said they’ll be able to finish their fellowships, mostly as planned, but both independently expressed their surprise as to why AmeriCorps was targeted for such heavy cuts.
“I was confused on why they were cutting programs that were supporting such important projects and initiatives when the people that were doing the work weren’t even getting paid that much,” LaFazia said. “If the goal is to save money, why are we like choosing programs that I don’t think have that high of an impact financially.”
Zimmerman said she couldn’t help but laugh when she saw headlines about “waste, fraud, and abuse” in relation to AmeriCorps.
“We’re paid volunteers,” Zimmerman said. “Volunteers; no one who’s an AmeriCorps fellow is doing it to take advantage of the government, I don’t think. I think a lot of people in AmericaCorps do it because they want to give back to their community. Or they feel a call towards service but don’t exactly know where to go with that. So they start with AmeriCorps.”
LaFazia said she feels, “as soon as you cut programs like AmeriCorps, like it’s going to be very clear where that service was being done and the new gaps that are created and the lack of work that’s actually being done to help communities.”
In June, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore funding to AmeriCorps programs in California and a number of other states, but funding after 2026 is uncertain.
CalMatters reports the cuts have left disaster relief organizations, and schools in California – where AmeriCorps fellows frequently serve as campus aides – struggling for staff because of the disruptions.
Zimmerman and LaFazia said they’ve loved their time in service work, getting to know the respective communities in Sonoma County and West Marin.
So much so that Zimmerman said, “I actually applied and accepted to do another term.”
“I got accepted to be a team leader for the California Climate Action Corps next year,” Zimmerman said.
A GrizzlyCorps spokesperson told KRCB News, that despite cuts to its federal funding, the program will continue to operate into the future.