DOGE’s $400 million in cuts to AmeriCorps is hitting Partnership 4 Kids, an Omaha, Nebraska-based education mentoring program, hard since it relied on seven AmeriCorps volunteers to work with students and help them navigate college applications and financial aid, reports the Omaha World-Herald
“It couldn’t have happened at a more critical time,” said Deb Denbeck, president and CEO of the education mentoring program.
The organization’s seven AmeriCorps members are stationed on college campuses and in high schools and middle schools, she said. They work to form relationships with students, helping to keep them engaged in school, graduate on time and pursue careers. Depending on their roles, they help students navigate everything from college applications and financial aid to first exams and resume writing
But Denbeck learned last week that both of Partnership 4 Kids’ grants, totaling $240,000, were terminated immediately as part of the larger national grant cuts that ended support for more than 1,000 education-focused agencies across the country.
» Read more about: Cuts Impact Omaha Student Mentoring Nonprofit at ‘Critical Time’ »
Cuts to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health system will delay care for military veterans in the Atlanta area, vets and healthcare providers tell WABE 90.1:
Veterans advocates say additional cuts to the Atlanta VA would worsen delays many veterans already experience in accessing health care and other services.
“A lot of veterans have to wait three months before they can even see a specialist or even get their first appointment when they get enrolled in benefits,” said Erika Alexander, a licensed social worker with the Atlanta VA Veterans Crisis Hotline team and President of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 518 at the Atlanta VA.
“There will be delays with their income verification, with them getting pharmacy services, resources for shelters in their community, for housing vouchers, transportation. Those are the types of departments that are going to be impacted by the reduction in force,” she added.
» Read more about: Vets Say Budget Cuts to VA Will Impact Services in Atlanta »
DOGE cuts to AmeriCorps, a federal agency for national service and volunteerism, is leading to job cuts at nonprofits in the Cincinnati area, reports WCPO-Channel 9:
WCPO, through council member Meeka Owens, learned organizations like Seven Hills Neighborhood Houses, Lighthouse Youth Services, Catholic Charities and more have lost corps members to cuts.
“These nonprofit organizations that are doing this work on the frontlines that cities, quite frankly, don’t have the capacity to do,” Owens said.
Owens told us the city had one employee working in historical designations who was let go, while the United Way of Greater Cincinnati had 11.
One organization that WCPO spoke to directly is The Mill Creek Alliance, a nonprofit that works to restore and maintain a stream of water that flows through the heart of Cincinnati.
More than $811 million in Justice Department grants for programs such as aid to crime victims and police were terminated by a member of DOGE, reports Reuters:
One terminated grant, $8.3 million to the National Policing Institute, funded rural police departments and district attorneys’ offices, including many in regions where Trump has had strong support. It helped pay for automated license plate readers, violent crime investigators and programs to combat child sexual abuse, according to a list seen by Reuters.
Police Chief Justin Holliday of Lyons, Kansas, said his department just started using grant funds to pay for the new Rice County Child Advocacy Center, where the executive director conducted forensic interviews of child sex abuse victims.
Braeley Hammeke, that director, said Rice County has a population of about 10,000 and the center has received referrals for 28 kids since it opened in November.
» Read more about: DOGE Staffer Cut Funds for Rural Police Departments »
A social services organization active across California is pausing operations at its Family Resource Center in Madera County due to DOGE cuts.
“This cut significantly impacts the services offered and, as a result, we regret to inform you that the Family Resource Center’s services will be paused until further notice,” First5 Madera County said. “We will let you know if or when our services return.”
First5, which has centers statewide, provides help to families with children age 5 and under. The organization’s Family Resource Centers provide weekly playgroups for young children, 12 weeks of free preschool, developmental screenings and referrals to other resources for families. “Unfortunately, this impacts all programming, including Pre-Kindergarten Learners, Little Learners, Play & Learn Groups and (Family Resource Center) on Wheels,” the organization said on its Facebook page.
Disability Rights New Jersey, a legal advocacy group that serves people with mental illness and developmental disabilities, is suspending most of its work for the next two weeks as it grapples with how to handle a funding freeze from the Trump administration.
The federal government has released just $1.6 million of the $3.1 million that Disability Rights counts on to represent people facing hardship in state-run institutions and state licensed nursing homes and group homes. They also fight for people at risk of losing Medicaid coverage for their health care and housing, said the organization’s executive director, Gwen Orlowski.
The nonprofit is down five attorneys and cannot replace them with the uncertainty around its finances, Orlowski said. Money has flowed in fits and starts since January when President [Donald] Trump was sworn in. Orlowski said late last year [that] senior leadership held off on raises anticipating the worst.
North Carolina will lose at least $714 million in federal funding due to DOGE cuts, reports WFMY News 2, which details the impact on public health and education in the state.
The station says that DOGE is cutting a Department of Education grant worth $11 million to the University of North Carolina Greensboro’s SERVE Center — which funds “research to help students succeed in and out of the classroom.”
The state’s Health and Human Services agency will lose $171 million in federal funding — requiring it to cut at least 80 jobs and scale back some programs. In a statement, an agency spokesperson told the station: “federal grants impact a number of areas of work including immunization efforts, funding for the new NC Immunization Registry, infectious disease monitoring and response, behavioral health, substance use disorder services and more.”
» Read more about: Cuts Hit North Carolina Public Health and Education »
The DOGE budget cuts and policies are having a major impact in the Kansas City metropolitan area, reports ABC News:
Money once promised to the region for public health, environmental, diversity, food aid and an array of other programs has been axed, and thousands of local jobs are in jeopardy.
With nearly 30,000 workers, the federal government is the largest employer in the region. One longtime Kansas City economic researcher said he believes the region could lose 6,000 good-paying federal jobs, which in turn would wipe out thousands of others in service industries…
A U.S. Department of Agriculture grant revocation disrupted a historically Black neighborhood’s plan to expand its program growing fresh produce in a food desert. A nearby pantry reduced its monthly grocery allotment for those in need after federal cuts left food banks shorthanded…
The withdrawal of federal funding for new lab equipment and vaccines means the city may be less prepared for the next pandemic.
» Read more about: DOGE Cuts Causing Deep Pain in Kansas City »
The dismissal of members of AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps is having a major impact in Wisconsin, reports the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
One crew of young volunteers was going to build a home in northwestern Wisconsin this summer.
A second group was set to be camp counselors for a “sibling camp” in Plymouth that brings together children separated by the foster care system.
And a third crew was heading to Wausau to build and restore houses and clear trails.
But none of them are coming anymore, Wisconsin nonprofits learned Wednesday.
» Read more about: With Cuts to AmeriCorps, Wisconsin Won’t Get Volunteers for Projects »
On the morning of March 20, Mathew Roberts was working at a chemical plant on the outskirts of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when he was involved in an accident with a forklift. Unresponsive and in critical condition, the father of two and Iraq War veteran known for his big laugh and warm smile was taken from the Nutrien nitrogen plant to a local hospital, where he died of his injuries.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the incident, along with local law enforcement, but Roberts’ family members said they are still waiting for answers.
The workplace death is not unusual in Louisiana, which has been ranked the sixth most dangerous state for workers in the U.S., according to a study that used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than 200 chemical plants and refineries sit along an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans,
» Read more about: OSHA Office Closure in ‘Cancer Alley’ Raises Fears About Risks to Workers »
Health officials in Nashville, Tennessee are warning about the impact of Health & Human Services cuts to their share of the $11 billion in grant funding, reports The Tennessean:
“The health of Tennesseans matters. Without these funds, the health of Tennesseans is going to suffer,” said D’Yuanna Allen-Robb, Nashville’s Maternal Child and Adolescent Health Division Director.
In Nashville, an evidence-based pregnancy support program Allen-Robb oversees could be decimated by the cuts.
Nashville Strong Babies was first developed in 2019 to provide intervention services in seven neighborhoods in the city identified as the highest risk for things like infant mortality, low birth rate and maternal health complications.
The program was initially funded through a longstanding federal infant mortality intervention fund, Allen-Robb said. The initiative began serving nearly 500 families and flourished, with 92% of the babies born full-term and 96% born at a healthy birth rate in the Strong Babies program,
» Read more about: With Funding Cuts, ‘the Health of Tennesseans Is Going to Suffer’ »
An Army vet in Phoenix, who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, has a rare type of cancer but said that his medical requests to the VA have been rejected due to DOGE.
In February, after Donald Trump returned to office, Army veteran Mark Puhl’s medical requests to the Department of Veterans Affairs—for surgery and a chemotherapy port, both related to cancer for which he had already received care through the VA—were denied. Puhl, who lives in Phoenix, Arizona, holds the cost-cutting efforts of Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” responsible.
“They approved me to see the surgeon who would do the surgery,” Puhl, 37, said. “They approved an MRI on top of that, to make sure that there were no vessels wrapped around the lumps they wanted to cut out to test for cancer. But then they denied the surgery itself.”
Puhl,
» Read more about: Army Vet Blames DOGE for VA Rejecting Cancer Treatments »
A recovery program for college students at the University of North Carolina Wilmington could lose thousands of dollars in grant funding, reports StarNews Online:
The program supports students in recovery from substance abuse, students seeking recovery and those affected by someone else’s addiction, [communications manager Krissy] Vick said. It is one of 14 recovery programs in the University of North Carolina school system…
More than $230 million in healthcare funding is at risk in North Carolina alone, according to a statement from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
“The federal grant funding impacts a number of areas of work including immunization efforts, funding for the new N.C. Immunization Registry, infectious disease monitoring and response, behavioral health, substance use disorder services and more,” the department stated. “We are currently working to determine the depth of impact, but we are certain this will result in the loss of more than 80 jobs and at least $100 million for the department with more than $230 million in funding at risk that directly contributes to the health,
A health officer for the Mobile County Health Department in Alabama says that funding cuts will impact the agency’s infrastructure upgrades and renovations, reports Fox 10 News:
Health Officer Dr. Kevin Michaels said the department has received roughly $23 million over the last few years, and it was expecting that money to be phased out over the next year and a half. Now that it’s come to a sudden stop, he says one of the biggest impacts will be to some ongoing infrastructure upgrades and renovations.
“Majority of the work was completed, but there’s a tail end that won’t be covered so we’ll have to come up with the money to finish out the contracting,” said Dr. Michaels.
Dr. Michaels says the department was able to move some employees around while others were let go once the funding stopped. One of the bigger programs that took a hit was the health equity program,
» Read more about: Cuts in Funding to Alabama Health Agency Impact Renovations, Equity Program »
Grants to monitor air quality in four communities near Charlotte, North Carolina, that have high pollution exposures due to nearby energy plants worry residents, reports The Charlotte Observer:
Organizations like CleanAIRE NC are worried too. The Charlotte-based nonprofit installed air monitors in McCrorey Heights in 2024 through a $75,000 EPA grant awarded in 2021. But a $500,000 EPA grant last year to help with similar efforts in north Mecklenburg County has been frozen by the feds.
That grant was for monitoring air quality in four communities which have higher pollution exposures because of energy plants near them: Smithville in Cornelius; Huntington Green and Pottstown in Huntersville; and West Davidson in Davidson…
The coalition is also trying to check if lead paint is in homes. But funding for testing and removal nationally has been pulled by the Trump administration too, according to [community activist Lisa] Mayhew-Jones and published reports.
» Read more about: Cuts to Clean Air Grants Raise Concerns in Charlotte’s Black Neighborhoods »
Cuts to grants that enabled schools and food banks to buy from small farms are having an impact in Iowa, Illinois and California, reports South Dakota Searchlight:
Anna Pesek saw a federal program supporting local food purchases as much more than a boost to her Iowa pork and poultry farm.
But now that the Trump administration has yanked the funding, she worries that rural economic boost might end too.
“With the razor-thin margins on both sides, those partnerships are just really hard, if not impossible, to sustain,” she said.
The co-owner of Over the Moon Farm, Pesek said her operation was never entirely reliant on the local food programs; it represented about 10% of her business. While she knew the federal money wouldn’t last forever, she was planning on the funding lasting through 2028 — but then the Trump administration last month nixed more than $1 billion for local food programs.
» Read more about: USDA Cuts Especially Hurt Small Farms in Iowa and Other Rural States »
On Jan. 16, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered the operator of digital payment provider Cash App to pay $175 million for failing to protect consumers from fraud, including $120 million in refunds and a $55 million penalty to the agency’s victims relief fund.
The headquarters for Head Start, which offers free education to low-income children, was closed and six employees laid off, potentially impacting tens of thousands of families in the region, reports KING-5.
It also helps women escape domestic violence and homeless families find shelter. It is often the last safety net for desperate parents and their kids simply looking to survive.
There are 450 Head Start families in Snohomish County [Washington] alone.
“If a family is worried about where they’re going to get their next meal or a roof over their heads, they’re not going to be thinking about whether their child knows the alphabet or numbers. No,” said program Executive Director Ginger Williams. “They’re in crisis mode.”
» Read more about: Seattle’s Head Start Headquarters Abruptly Shut Down »
The South Dakota Humanities Council, a nonprofit that gives free books to students in the state, told KELO that all of its federal funding from the National Endowment For The Humanities had been cut.
Per the report:
Executive director Christina Oey says there was little warning that funding for the organization was on the chopping block, and now the non-profit needs to make cuts of its own.
“The first one that to me personally is most concerning is our young readers book. Our Young Readers Program provides a free book to every single third grader in the state of South Dakota. And so with these cuts, we don’t know if that’s going to happen anymore,” Oey said.
Oey says it gets $950,000 from the federal government which is 73% of its operating budget. The rest comes from donations.
» Read more about: DOGE Cuts Funds for South Dakota Nonprofit That Gives Free Books to Students »
The USDA’s cuts to the Emergency Food Assistance Program [TFAP] is hurting food banks such as Harvesters in Kansas, reports KSNT News:
“This comes as Kansas food insecurity is the worst it’s been in a decade.”
Elizabeth Keever, the chief resource officer of Harvesters, told the station:
“This is food that would have otherwise gone directly into the hands of our neighbors and now is completely canceled. And we don’t know the status of it.
Last month, 18,500 neighbors received TFAP products in the region. Those folks this next upcoming month are going to have 30% less food to take home.”
» Read more about: DOGE Cuts to USA Are Impacting Food Banks in Kansas »