of $100 million dollars. "Voices for AmeriCorps"
lasted 100 straight hours, from Tuesday to Saturday,
according to Marty Friedman, executive director of
EducationWorks, an AmeriCorps grantee.
"Voices for AmeriCorps" drew AmeriCorps members,
alumni, service organization leaders and members of
the Senate and the House of Representatives, Friedman
said.
"The idea is to get people to understand what
AmeriCorps has done," Friedman said. AmeriCorps, a volunteer organization that was created nine years ago, needs $100 million in
supplemental appropriations for the 2003-04 program
year, he said.
AmeriCorps faced budget cuts for the 2003-04 fiscal
year, administrative mismanagement and owed money from
the 2002-03 fiscal year.
Administrative mismanagement at the beginning of the
program year came from enrolling 70,000 volunteers
instead of the 50,000 funding allows, according to a
speech on the Senate floor from Senator Barbara
Mikulski (D-M.D.).
In response to the over-enrollment problem, the
"Strengthen AmeriCorps Program Act" was passed in
January.
"This bill is simple and straightforward," Mikulski
said in her speech. "It gives the AmeriCorps program
flexibility within the current funding for 2003 so
that there can be 50,000 AmeriCorps volunteers this
year."
"We've addressed management problems found in the
past," AmeriCorps spokesman Sandy Scott said. "We're
on track to reaching the maximum number of AmeriCorps
volunteers possible."
AmeriCorps also owed $64 million in "prior year
obligations not related to the 2003 picture," Scott
said. AmeriCorps got the money through the "Emergency
Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act" in April.
However, AmeriCorps still does not have enough money
to fund all the programs it funded last year because
of budget cuts in the 2003-04 fiscal year, Friedman
said.
"The people who suffer are the people who benefit
from these programs," he said. If programs do not get
funding this year, they may have to shut down and will
not benefit from any possible increased funding next
year, he said.
The Senate approved the $100 million in an emergency
supplement in the spring, Friedman said. However, the
House did not.
"The House Republican leadership rejected efforts to
include the $100 million supplement in the bill that
came before the House for a vote in July," Congressman Jerry Kleczka (D-Milwaukee) said in a
statement. Kleczka is a strong supporter of AmeriCorps
and wrote President Bush asking that "the
necessary additional funding be included in the
emergency supplemental bill."
According to reports, Bush is also an AmeriCorps
supporter. Scott said he requested funding be
increased to accommodate 75,000 volunteers each year.
Funding problems for AmeriCorps have had an effect on
20-year-old Erica Trani, who spent two years at
Beloit College. Trani is taking a year off of school
to volunteer.
"They sent me letters saying, 'Your acceptance is
contingent on us having enough funding,'" Trani said.
She said she did not know if other volunteers received
phone calls canceling their positions in the program,
but she is leaving Sept. 16.
Trani was majoring in biology but will spend the next
10 months volunteering in the southern United States.
AmeriCorps works primarily through local non-profit
organizations by awarding grants. These non-profits
participate in grant competitions by submitting
proposals. AmeriCorps then chooses which organizations
to fund, the grant money being used to recruit,
select and supervise AmeriCorps members, according to
AmeriCorps' Web site.
Trani, however, will be in the AmeriCorps National
Community Civilian Corps, which has volunteers work
for 10 months in a specific region of the United
States. The AmeriCorps NCCC is only open to 18-24
year-olds who receive an education stipend of
approximately $4,500, she said.
She decided to join because she wanted "experiential
learning" before deciding what to do with the rest of
her life.
"When I got out of high school I really wanted to do
something valuable with my life," Trani said. "I
didn't think just doing home work was very valuable to society."