A WCC Chimacum Riparian Restoration crew creating downed log surrogates at Snow Creek Forest Preserve in April 2021. Photo by Owen French, courtesy of Washington State Department of Ecology.
On April 25, President Trump signed an executive order terminating active AmeriCorps grants and reducing the independent agency’s workforce by 85 percent. The order effectively ends this 30-year-old program, which annually provides opportunities to tens of thousands of Americans to meaningfully serve their communities across a range of critical sectors and services while gaining valuable employment experience.
Nearly $400 million in grant program funding has been terminated, leading to more than 1,000 programs closing and prematurely ending the service of more than 32,000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers, according to America’s Service Commissions.
Kelly (left) and Greg (right) both joined the Land Trust as AmeriCorps service members. Greg served from 2023-24 and is now our full-time Field Assistant. Kelly’s term began in September 2024.
Jefferson Land Trust has benefited directly from engaging the services of AmeriCorps members throughout our 36-year history and has benefited indirectly in many other ways. We currently host one AmeriCorps member: Kelly Stocker joined us in September 2024 as a habitat enhancement crew member, and has been an invaluable asset to our stewardship team.
Kelly had a few months left on his contract when the executive order was signed. We’re honoring our commitment to him, using Jefferson Land Trust’s annual fund to pay him throughout the remainder of his service term.
The value of AmeriCorps can also be seen among the Land Trust’s staff. Of the 17 people we currently employ, four of them — almost 25% — jumpstarted their conservation careers as AmeriCorps service members. One of these is Carrie Clendaniel, Preserve Manager, who first came to the Land Trust on an AmeriCorps service term. Prior to this she was also an AmeriCorps service member with our longtime partners the North Olympic Salmon Coalition (NOSC).
Land Trust Preserve Manager Carrie Clendaniel at a protected Land Trust property on the banks of the Big Quilcene River.
“The AmeriCorps program has benefited our community, and our organization, in permanent and far-reaching ways,” Carrie says. “Almost any time I speak to a partner organization, a community volunteer, or even employees at state and federal agencies, stories of AmeriCorps service members and their collective impact come to light. AmeriCorps members provide safety and stability to organizations like Jefferson Land Trust, where regular and committed hands on the ground — or in the food bank, community garden, school library, or salmon stream, to name a few other local positions — are crucial to organizational and community goals.”
She continues, “Looking around, former AmeriCorps members are all over this community, often now in permanent staff roles, paying rent or owning homes, raising families, and still contributing to the collective good. I can personally think of members or alums who currently or previously continue to work at NOSC, the Port Townsend Marine Science Center, the Brinnon School District, the Jefferson County Noxious Weed Control Board, our State Department of Natural Resources, the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, the forestry sector, OlyCap, Habitat For Humanity, and land trusts around the region. AmeriCorps has formed a network that stretches across our whole community.”
Our partnerships and collaborations with local organizations like these are a major way the Land Trust indirectly benefits from AmeriCorps service.
A Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) crew helping complete the first .2 miles of the multi-use trail at Chimacum Ridge in April 2025.
Another benefit is the work of Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) crews — an AmeriCorps program — with whom we regularly contract to help build trails and restore habitat on our nature preserves. These crews have the skills, tools, strength, and numbers to accomplish important tasks at a pace far beyond our capacity as a small nonprofit.
For example, only weeks ago, in early April, a WCC crew helped us take a huge leap forward in our work to establish a multi-use trail at Chimacum Ridge Community Forest in time for its opening in late September. They laid more than 60 tons of gravel, moved and set 21 huge retaining logs, and installed 13 culverts to divert rainwater away from the trail. The uncertainty of this program’s future is not only an enormous loss to service members personally, but also to the Land Trust’s ability to care for the land we protect, and to the numerous lands, animals, organizations, and communities who benefit from their good work.
“I’m deeply saddened and angry that the WCC funding was cut and these awesome workers were laid off with three more months of wages, education awards, and health benefits,” says Ryen Helzer, Community Forest Manager. “Most of the crew that helped in April are residents of the Northeast Olympic Peninsula. The work they do often goes unnoticed, but keeps our ecosystems and natural resources intact and healthy for future generations.”
Marlowe Moser, our Stewardship Assistant, on an easement monitoring visit.
Marlowe Moser, the Land Trust’s Stewardship Coordinator, served with the WCC on a riparian restoration crew based in Port Hadlock in 2020-21, completing many land management projects at restoration sites across the Olympic Peninsula. While the crew was primarily sponsored by NOSC, Marlowe and her crewmates also worked for a variety of other sponsors including the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group, the Jefferson County Conservation District, Jefferson County — and Jefferson Land Trust.
“It was actually through my AmeriCorps service that I was introduced to Jefferson Land Trust: we did tree planting and noxious weed removal at multiple Land Trust preserves and conservation easements,” Marlowe says. “Much of what I learned about land management during my service term informs my work at the Land Trust now, from the stewardship plans that I write with easement landowners to what I look out for on monitoring visits.”
The Land Trust Development Manager, Sarah Zablocki-Axling, setting up for an event.
She continues, “AmeriCorps is a very important resource for organizations and tribes doing restoration and conservation work in our region. It’s an affordable source of necessary labor, and helps develop future members of a specialized workforce. The healthcare, food assistance, job training, loan deferment, and education award it offers to members allows it to fill this niche in a reliable and consistent way.”
The Land Trust’s longtime Development Manager Sarah Zablocki-Axling began her career as a Student Conservation Association AmeriCorps Intern serving as an Education Ranger at Erie National Wildlife Refuge in Pennsylvania, an Interpretative Ranger at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado, and a Backcountry Ranger at Olympic National Park. And, she says, “I’ve worked with countless amazing AmeriCorps members over my career whose hard work can be seen on trails all across the country.”
Greg Sachs, the Land Trust’s Field Assistant, holding an enormous blackberry root he dug up during habitat restoration work at a Land Trust preserve.
The Land Trust’s Field Assistant Greg Sachs first joined the Land Trust as an AmeriCorps crew member in 2023-24, along with two other crew members, and we were thrilled to hire him as full-time staff member in 2024. “AmeriCorps changed my life for the better by allowing me to turn my passion for conservation into a career,” Greg says. “The loss of opportunities AmeriCorps provides to serve our country along with the loss of the incredible, diverse work that AmeriCorps supports is heartbreaking.”
On April 29, Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown joined almost two dozen other states in a lawsuit challenging the executive order. The lawsuit argues that because AmeriCorps was created through an act of Congress, Congress is the only entity with the legal authority to dismantle it.
As that lawsuit makes its way through the courts, we encourage you to take action:
