Last week, the Trump administration cut thousands of positions within AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteerism.
As the CEO of Avodah, the Jewish Service Corps, I know just how crucial these now cut services are for so many people experiencing poverty across the country. While Avodah is not a part of AmeriCorps and will not be directly affected by these cuts, we share that agency’s commitment to serving our communities across the United States.
Like AmeriCorps, the Jewish Service Corps, is a year of service program that gives Jewish young adults the opportunities to volunteer at antipoverty and social justice nonprofits across the country. Over 27 years, Avodah Jewish Service Corps Members have served over 200 organizations across five US cities, adding capacity to serve hundreds of thousands of clients in need.
While we are proud of our impact, it is just a fraction of the nearly 200,000 AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps Seniors members who serve in similar roles annually.
Historically, this commitment to service has shared wide bipartisan support. Elected officials on both sides of the aisle saw the value of programs like the National Civilian Community Corps that provided senior care, food distribution, and disaster relief for their constituents. All of those positions have now been eliminated, leaving wide holes in our systems of care.
When I saw this news, I thought of Avodah’s Corps Members, like Amy Blumsack, a 2003-2004 graduate of Avodah, who served at a Neighbors Together in Brooklyn, supporting individuals experiencing hunger and poverty.
Since then she has stayed in this field, and has returned to Neighbors Together to lead their policy efforts to end hunger and poverty. She credits her service year as the reason she got into this work, and the reason she is still there. The Executive Director of Neighbors Together, Denny Marsh is also an Avodah alumnus.
I wonder how many people would not have been helped over the past two decades if Amy did not have the opportunity to serve.
I think of the thousands of people impacted over the course of 20 years by this one single former Corps Member, the thousands of lives changed. Diminishing service programs will diminish possibilities for a better future for countless individuals across the country.
Service programs are providing essential care to our neighbors all over the country, from major cities to small towns. Service year volunteers are the ones who clean up after natural disasters, tutor students in our public schools, and help neighbors access housing and food assistance.
I believe that it is crucial for future leaders to get proximate to the challenges facing our communities, and to listen to the voices of those who are most affected. This proximity creates leaders who can bring creativity to bear on our country’s challenges.
These programs are also important educational experiences for the volunteers themselves, where they learn important skills to continue serving our communities. These programs provide a rare opportunity for young people to face problems head on, and learn the strategies to solve them.
The results are long lasting. At Avodah, 98.6% of our alumni stay engaged in justice work after they graduate from our program. Alumni go on to become the public health professionals, the pro bono lawyers, the social workers, the teachers, and the Jewish communal leaders that are leading this work for decades to come.
In my ten years as CEO, I have seen Service Corps alumni go on to found nonprofits that tackle hunger, power civil rights campaigns, and lead Jewish justice organizations.
Cutting AmeriCorps is a shortsighted and devastating decision that will lead to more hunger, more homelessness, and fewer leaders who will answer the call to face the great challenges that face us all.
In the Talmud, Rabbi Tarfon teaches that “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
Avodah is committed to remaining in service to this country, and we are deeply concerned by this decision. If we want to tackle the issues facing every American family, from the high cost of living to climate change, we will need more service, not less.
