Harpswell Heritage Land Trust is among dozens of Maine nonprofits that lost an AmeriCorps member this spring after the Trump administration announced sweeping program cuts.
Executive Director Matt Newberg said the AmeriCorps member, who started in February, left abruptly in late April after the funding cuts were announced. A recent federal ruling to reinstate the funds won’t bring that member back, he added. He had been expected to stay on through November.
“That AmeriCorps member came to us most directly from the Maine Conservation Corps, through Volunteer Maine, and through the AmeriCorps program,” Newberg said in an interview. “When Volunteer Maine was told that the AmeriCorps grants that they had were going to be terminated, (members were told), ‘Please do not show up at work.'”
Volunteer Maine then announced it could likely continue paying members for their time, but they would lose significant perks, including a stipend to spend on higher education or student loans at the conclusion of their volunteer service. AmeriCorps members receive a modest living allowance, plus the education award.
The loss of the education payment, combined with overall funding uncertainty, led many members to walk away. The Land Trust’s AmeriCorps member, John Sheldon, was among them, Newberg said.
Sheldon, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, had been working as an environmental steward for the trust and was planning to complete an in-depth trail accessibility study. That work is now on hold, according to Newberg.
“That (study) was something we had been trying to do and just don’t have the capacity to do with the current staff,” he said. “I’m not certain that we are going to be able to do that this summer.”
Maine is among two dozen states that sued the Trump administration immediately after the AmeriCorps cuts were announced. In early June, a federal judge granted a temporary block on the agency’s cancellation of grants and early discharge of corps members in those states, The Associated Press reported.
According to Maine Public, Volunteer Maine, the state’s service commission, said the ruling reinstates about $2.5 million that supported eight AmeriCorps projects around Maine and about 120 members.
But Volunteer Maine’s executive director, Britt Gleixner-Haya, told the news outlet that the ruling wouldn’t lead to an immediate resumption of programs and services.
“This is not like a light switch you can turn on and off,” she told Maine Public. “The April termination already had an impact on our partners and on communities across Maine.”
The ruling won’t bring back Sheldon, who returned to his home state of Montana to work in the fire service. Newberg said the abrupt funding cuts initiated by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, upended the lives of roughly 32,000 AmeriCorps members nationwide, as well as disrupting the organizations they served.
Newberg said that in addition to his service with the Land Trust, Sheldon had gotten involved with Harpswell Aging at Home’s Retired Older Men Eating Out, or ROMEO, program and had helped out as a sternman on Select Board member Matt Gilley’s lobster boat.
“He was really becoming very quickly involved in the community,” Newberg said. “(His departure) is just really unfortunate.”
