West Virginia has been a national leader in groundbreaking AmeriCorps programs.
AmeriCorps members have mentored students, staffed food banks, rebuilt homes, supported mental health and recovery programs, mobilized volunteers -- all making it possible for our nonprofits to do more with limited resources.
As a lifelong West Virginian, and as the director of the Sisters of St. Joseph Health and Wellness Foundation, I couldn't be more proud of how we have leveraged AmeriCorps to build a stronger future for our communities.
This spring, however, AmeriCorps funding was abruptly cut, leaving program after program without essential support. We are hoping that our senators, Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, both R-W.Va. -- two great champions of national service, especially Capito, the vice chairwoman of the national service caucus in the Senate -- will urge the Office of Management and Budget to release the funds appropriated by Congress. We must ensure that innovative AmeriCorps programs can continue to serve West Virginia communities. The funds have been approved; they must be released.
In our state, each federal dollar has delivered $34 in benefits to communities. West Virginia has had the greatest number of AmeriCorps members per capita of any state. They serve and, often, they commit to careers in serving others. As the director of a philanthropic organization, I see how AmeriCorps alumni form the backbone of our nonprofit sector.
AmeriCorps has kept West Virginians in West Virginia, reversing the brain drain. My own year in AmeriCorps gave me real professional skills, made me fall in love with my state and convinced me to stay and serve, and make a family in West Virginia. In addition, AmeriCorps has been the best importer of talent for those who come here, serve here, connect and don't leave. They buy homes here, raise their kids here and make a life in our beautiful state.
AmeriCorps has served as the biggest pipeline for program staff in life-transforming recovery and employment programs like Jobs & Hope West Virginia. It has delivered key support to literacy programs including Energy Express. With programs like West Virginia Ready, it has built our economic future by mapping tourism assets throughout the state. It has strengthened our great natural resources in every environmental basin.
AmeriCorps has been a workforce development engine in towns like Smithers and opened doors of post-secondary achievement to AmeriCorps members with our innovative state tuition waiver program, which provides a year of tuition-free education in exchange for a year of service, up to a total of four years. That's yet another way of giving West Virginians the skills they need for careers.
In addition to delivering services, building the workforce and strengthening communities, AmeriCorps has changed us deeply, one by one, as citizens and as neighbors.
Just last month, late on a Saturday night, deadly floods swept through Northern West Virginia. Among those hit was an AmeriCorps alumnae, a woman in long-term recovery, working on her college degree. She lost everything, home and belongings. Monday morning, who showed up first to help? Fellow AmeriCorps members, including several who'd been let go in the funding cuts. There they were, ready to serve.
Those are the leaders AmeriCorps has built in our state. People who keep giving, no matter what, who can never let go of their civic responsibility, who take pride in who we are as Americans, who take pride in helping other Americans. Making West Virginia stronger than ever.
Philanthropy cannot match the scale or stability of federal investment. Critical needs will go unmet if we have only state budgets and private giving to turn to.
AmeriCorps has supported communities and people in need throughout the state, in programs like High Rocks in Hillsboro, Libera in Morgantown and ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, the Mother Jones Center for Resilient Community and Youth Services Systems in Wheeling, and Conservation Stewards' Individual Placements and Try This WV, both serving statewide. What future do these programs have -- what future do these people have -- without AmeriCorps?
People will feel this all over the state. Those who can leave will. Those who remain will struggle even more.
Capito and Justice can lead the way to protecting funding for AmeriCorps, and I hope they will. For the future of West Virginia.
