STARKVILLE — Cornelius Edmond logged into his email Monday afternoon, intending to accept an offer for a third year with AmeriCorps VISTA, a federal volunteer program. Instead, he found an email from AmeriCorps informing him that his position with the Starkville Area Arts Council as the arts programming assistant had been terminated, effective immediately.
“At first I was like, ‘Is this a scam? Is this a phishing situation? Did I do something wrong?’” Edmond recalled. “As I was reading it, I noticed that the whole entire project had been terminated, and that’s when I realized this is something bigger than just me.”
Edmond is one of thousands of AmeriCorps VISTA employees placed on sudden administrative leave after the Department of Government Efficiency ordered the agency to cut nearly $400 million in funding last week. VISTA employees were told by email they would be placed on paid leave through May 19, during which time they should seek reassignment, or else they would be terminated.
AmeriCorps VISTA, which connects volunteers to nonprofits, offers participants a poverty-wage salary of about $24,000 annually, along with health benefits and a $7,500 education stipend at the end of their term. VISTA members can serve up to five years.
Edmond has worked with AmeriCorps through Mississippi State University’s Maroon Volunteer Center since July 2023. The center served as a site for AmeriCorps employees to be connected with area nonprofits – receiving $202,733 in annual federal grants for the program – until funding was cut Monday morning.
“The AmeriCorps VISTA position at MSU will be among the 30,000 AmeriCorps VISTA members being forced to exit their programs prematurely,” said Sid Salter, MSU vice president for strategic communications and director of public affairs.
Higher costs and fewer services
Although the Maroon Volunteer Center will continue its operations through Service Dawgs, a campus volunteer program separate from AmeriCorps, the cuts have left Starkville nonprofits uncertain about the future.
Juliette Reid, interim executive director for Starkville Area Arts Council, expressed concern that the termination of VISTA positions will force nonprofits to pay significantly more for the same staffing levels.
“If nonprofits in Starkville, and everywhere, have to hire these people outright … it’s going to cost us thousands of dollars that we did not have to account for last week,” Reid said. “It’s going to cost nonprofits so much more money in a time where donations are thin. Everything is so much more expensive. It is truly devastating.”
Edmond’s role at the arts council included managing social media, writing newsletters and assisting Reid with grant writing, all of which are tasks that Reid describes as “essential,” especially as the organization searches for a new executive director.
“It’s very disheartening that they consider it to be government waste, what we’re doing, and it’s not,” Edmond said.
Rebekah Carruth, operations coordinator for Starkville Strong, received the same termination notice. Carruth handles coordinating interns and volunteers daily, as well as scheduling interviews.
“I am devastated,” Carruth said. “I have cried a lot. What I do at Starkville Strong and what the other VISTAs do here is invaluable. It’s been very difficult to know that this job that I love so much, the work that I’m doing that I’m so passionate about … to wake up and be told that actually, you don’t work there anymore.”
Starkville Strong’s other VISTA employee, Kimberly Christy, is a case manager. Christy, who evaluates client cases and provides housing and bill assistance to clients, said she hasn’t had time to process the news due to the demands of her role. Christy plans to continue volunteering with Starkville Strong, despite AmeriCorps’ directive.
“The work doesn’t stop for my clients, and I just can’t take the time to feel bad because this is happening,” Christy said. “I’ll definitely need a stream of income, but God’s going to bless me with that too. I’m just taking it one day at a time.”
Brandi Herrington, executive director for Starkville Strong, said she planned to hire two additional VISTA employees through the United Way of the Golden Triangle Region, though she expects United Way’s program will be cut soon as well.
Christian Bradley, United Way’s AmeriCorps Vista coordinator, agress that is a possibility.
“There is a concern because all of our colleagues around us have closed and shut down,” Bradley said. “… We can’t get anyone on the phone to give us any specific information regarding our specific project. So it’s just the waiting game, waiting for whatever news they’re going to tell us.”
‘You’re going to start to see more homeless’
Herrington said if United Way’s AmeriCorps program is terminated, losing both her operations coordinator and case manager will significantly impact the organization’s scale of aid.
“We will have to go back to those earlier years where all we did was address a couple of things and not the wide net of things that we’ve since picked up,” Herrington said. “When I say nobody else is addressing homelessness like we are, then if we’re not addressing it, you’re going to start to see more homeless on the streets. You’re going to have a lot more people who don’t have the mentorship and the guidance they need to get out of the crisis they’re in.”
The J.L. King Center also lost its VISTA employee, Adarian Johnson, who has managed the center’s technology for three years.
Margaret Brown, director of the J.L. King Center, said losing Johnson is “devastating.”
“I truly don’t know what I’m going to do,” Brown said. “… He did everything. He was our go-to person. He’s so deeply already missed. Two days he’s been gone … and I am about to lose my mind around here.”
Reid, Herrington and Brown all agreed community members could help the organizations by donating monetarily on the organizations’ websites, or by donating their time through volunteer work.
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