700 at-risk Tri-Cities students abruptly lose mentors after federal AmeriCorps cuts

Hundreds of Tri-Cities children at risk of dropping out of school have lost their mentors after funding was abruptly terminated for the AmeriCorps program.

The United Way of Benton and Franklin Counties said that the sudden loss of funding will directly impact about 700 local middle school students participating in their Attendance Matters Mentoring Program, according to a news release.

LoAnn Ayers, president of the United Way of Benton and Franklin Counties, said that the organization is working with Tri-Cities school principals and volunteers to communicate what this means for them, and reduce the trauma of the loss for the children.

The program pairs chronically absent students with mentors, often college students, at nine Tri-Cities area middle schools, providing them with one-on-one guidance as well as group support to keep them engaged and on track to graduate high school.

Casey Moddrell, a 2024-25 mentor for the program, said in the news release that the loss has been devastating for their students.

“We had the unique opportunity to change children’s negative perception of school to a positive one, and I can only hope we did enough to impact their lives before our program was ripped from them,” Moddrell said. “When I had to tell the kids at my school that I was not coming back, they had tears in their eyes.”

The nonprofit hopes to relaunch the program, but they’ll need local help to do it.

They are actively seeking new partnerships, funding opportunities and volunteer support to reinstate and expand mentoring services, according to the release.

Ayers is also encouraging community members to contact Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, to share how AmeriCorps benefits the Tri-Cities.

AmeriCorps provided about $315,000 in direct funding to the Attendance Matters Program in 2023, and about 20 volunteers in that cohort received $78,000 in education awards for their service.

This is the second major hit to the United Way of Benton and Franklin Counties because of federal cuts.

Their Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which provided grant funding to local nonprofits through FEMA, saw its federal funding suddenly cut in March.

Washington state has joined two dozen other states in suing the Trump administration to stop the elimination of the federal volunteer program.

AmeriCorps is a national service program with several divisions that help communities with volunteering, disaster response, employment and more.

The National Civilian Community Corps, which sends disaster response teams to communities, was the first to be cut last month. Shortly after, about 85% of the AmeriCorps administration was laid off and $400 million in grant funding was terminated.

The Tri-Cities area benefits from a variety of programs funded and staffed by AmeriCorps. Those programs include Serve Tri-Cities, a nonprofit centered on increasing reading and math skills in elementary schools across Pasco, which received about $600,000 in funding in 2023 with 30 volunteers.

The largest AmeriCorps program in the area is the Seniors RSVP program, which is a flexible program that relies on seniors to fill critical needs in the community and provide experienced volunteers to local food banks, nonprofits and other organizations. The seniors program is run through Catholic Charities of Central Washington.

While Seniors RSVP only received about $135,000 in 2023, they paired 275 volunteers with local organizations. Their counterpart through Yakima Valley Community College had 350 volunteers that year.

A second senior oriented volunteer program through the Diocese of Yakima paired 170 volunteers with home-bound seniors to provide help and companionship. That program was the most costly in the region, at $1.2 million in 2023.

The state of funding is unclear for the other AmeriCorps programs at this time, but the agency seems to be in line to be completely dismantled.