KDSN RADIO News
Donors save jobs of AmeriCorps workers in Davenport
Fundraising efforts in eastern Iowa will allow some AmeriCorps members to continue working through the summer, after the federal money for the program was eliminated by DOGE earlier this year.
Eight AmeriCorps members in Davenport will be able to finish their service, after donors chipped in to help reach the $78,000 goal.
Matt Mendenhall, president of the Regional Development Authority, says the locals acted quickly to save the program.
“We have a pretty tight-knit group of community funders,” Mendenhall says, “and so we often will come together on different things when it needs a group resource.”
Mendenhall says the eight members will serve at local nonprofits and agencies like Big Brothers Big Sisters and Davenport Parks and Recreation until their contracts end in August.
“It was well over two to three-thousand kids that would be affected in terms of their summer programming,” he says, “so I think it was just pretty easy, because I think AmeriCorps is pretty well known, so I think there’s a lot of credibility already built in to what that would look like.”
The team will officially serve through the Iowa National Service Corps, instead of AmeriCorps.
(By James Kelley, Iowa Public Radio)
