Perspective | AmeriCorps works. Let’s fight to keep it

On April 28, Book Harvest received alarming and tremendously upsetting news: the North Carolina LiteracyCorps — along with more than 1,000 other AmeriCorps programs across the country — was being terminated, effective immediately. 

The sudden decision by the Trump administration to shut down grants to AmeriCorps will have real and immediate repercussions for the lives of babies, children, and families in communities across the country — including our home community of Durham.

At Book Harvest, we are proud to host three extraordinary education-focused AmeriCorps members through the North Carolina LiteracyCorps, to help us fulfill our mission of books for every child and support for every parent. These amazing young people are not just volunteers; they are educators, mentors, and change-makers. Every day, they bring talent, heart, and dedication to the children and families we serve. 

And what they do lifts up families, daily: our AmeriCorps members pack boxes of books to be mailed to families; they greet children who come to our Family Space; they restock our book hubs in laundromats, public parks, and health clinics; they run story times with toddlers; they process the tens of thousands of books we receive from book drives. 

The contributions of our North Carolina LiteracyCorps members are indispensable to Book Harvest’s mission — and to our future.

AmeriCorps has, from its very first days, been a rare and inspiring example of enduring bipartisan achievement, with each of the past five presidents taking steps to grow and strengthen it. President George H. W. Bush created the Commission on National and Community Service, which became the permanent Corporation for National and Community Service when President Bill Clinton signed the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993.

In the years that followed, President George W. Bush worked to increase the size of the program by fifty percent, and President Barack Obama signed into law the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which outlined a plan to expand the AmeriCorps program. President Biden continued the decades-long era of national service in our country with the launch of the National Partnership for Student Success (NPSS), a coordinated, research-based, locally-driven, all-in effort to help all students recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is nothing controversial about AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps and the national service movement from which it sprang are an elemental part of the fabric of what is best about America. AmeriCorps has been an essential part, and in some cases a founding one, of national programs such as American Red Cross, Teach for America, City Year, Boys and Girls Clubs, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Public Allies.

AmeriCorps has provided hundreds of thousands of young Americans the chance to serve their country by mentoring and tutoring students, bringing essential health initiatives directly to families, responding to disasters such as hurricanes and floods, and tackling the most pressing needs of our time. In return, those who serve grow into more engaged, connected, and capable citizens. They have also earned more than $4.8 billion in scholarships through the Eli Segal Education award to advance their own life prospects. The recipe is simple yet powerful: when you invest in your community and country, your community and country invest back in you.

Tabitha Blackwell, the executive director of Book Harvest Durham, shared, “As a former AmeriCorps member, I know firsthand how vital this program is — not only to the countless organizations that depend on it, but to the many young adults who seek purpose, direction, and an opportunity to serve their communities before launching their careers.”

It’s a virtuous cycle. One that has benefitted every corner of the United States.

And, yet, this cycle has been broken — through self-inflicted and completely unnecessary actions. Cutting AmeriCorps funding is shortsighted and deeply harmful — for all that AmeriCorps does, we should be doubling down on it, not tearing it apart. The decision abandons the very ideals of civic responsibility and community empowerment that do and should unite us. AmeriCorps belongs to everyone.

At Book Harvest, we are stepping up: We will find the funds to retain our three AmeriCorps members and are offering them the support to fill out their terms because their work is simply too valuable to lose. But this should not be the burden of local nonprofits alone. We need AmeriCorps. America needs AmeriCorps.

To the leaders in Congress and to our neighbors across the country: Speak up. Restore funding to AmeriCorps. Support those who serve. Invest in our communities and in the young people who are showing up every day to make those communities, and our country, stronger.