DOGE Terminates Year of Service Funding for Aspiring Environmentalists
Audubon Society of Rhode Island
Loses TerraCorps Service Members Who Supported Science and Community Engagement
(Smithfield, Rhode Island, May 7, 2025) — The Audubon Society of Rhode Island is a service site partner with TerraCorps, a nonprofit organization employing community service members working in land and water conservation organizations. On Friday, April 25, the federal AmeriCorps agency, the main funder for TerraCorps, abruptly terminated nearly $400 million in grant program funding, which will shutter TerraCorps and prematurely ends the service of Audubon’s two members three months early.
TerraCorps partners with a network of 40+ nonprofits in Massachusetts and Rhode Island focused on community needs related to local land and water conservation, sustainable farming, and local food systems. Service members are paired with a partner site like Audubon, who provides them guidance and mentorship while they learn to manage community programs and projects over an 11-month term. This years’ service term was funded by Congress to run from August 26, 2024, through July 25, 2025, before those funds were abruptly terminated.
Audubon’s two TerraCorps members are gaining valuable work experience in the environmental field and have engaged with hundreds of Rhode Islanders through their community outreach, conservation field work, and public education initiatives.
Hard-working and dedicated, they have teamed with the Providence Boys and Girls Clubs to create a native wildflower garden and provide education programs on pollinators. They have led community monitoring of the Canada Geese population in Roger Williams Park and worked with the Wanskuck Community Library in Providence to install an outdoor classroom on the library grounds. In addition, they have guided horseshoe crab and shorebird expeditions, teamed with volunteers and community groups to build birdhouses, and then install them in city parks and along bike paths. Providing hours of work each week alongside the Audubon properties staff, they have dug in and worked on numerous land conservation projects on Audubon wildlife refuges across Rhode Island.
Audubon is looking to support their efforts and fund three months of living allowance – totaling $13,000 – so that both TerraCorps members at Audubon can complete their full year of service.
Please consider making a gift to help Audubon replace the TerraCorps funding that was unexpectedly terminated. Visit
https://bit.ly/AudubonTerraCorp
today.
Your generous donation will provide financial assistance as these young conservationists complete their impactful work across the state.
About Audubon Society of Rhode Island: The Audubon Society of Rhode Island is an independent not-for-profit environmental organization dedicated to protecting birds, wildlife, and their habitats through environmental education, advocacy, and land conservation. The state’s first environmental organization, Audubon now protects nearly 10,000 acres in a network of wildlife refuges, pristine properties, and wildlife habitats. One of the largest private environmental educators in the state, Audubon staff teaches approximately 22,000 people across the region each year. Audubon Society of Rhode Island is not affiliated with National Audubon. Learn more at asri.org
About TerraCorps: TerraCorps is a nonprofit organization working at the intersection of land and water conservation, sustainable farming, and local food systems to build local nonprofit capacity while providing an early career pathway for the next generation of community service leaders. We value the power of local nonprofits to best understand and serve their communities. Our goal is to help them succeed by providing them access to the AmeriCorps national service model to build organizational capacity.
The program is funded in part by grants provided by AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteering, and administered in Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Service Alliance and in Rhode Island by ServeRI. Learn more about TerraCorps at terracorps.org.
About ServeRI: ServeRI, Rhode Island’s Commission for National and Community Service, creates opportunities through AmeriCorps and volunteer programs for individuals of all ages, experiences, and abilities to develop their civic leadership and future careers. ServeRI helps Rhode Island communities build capacity to address unmet needs while placing hundreds of adults each year into paid AmeriCorps service positions where they learn valuable work skills, earn money for education, and make an immediate impact. Learn more at serverhodeisland.com.
About AmeriCorps: AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteering, provides opportunities for Americans to serve their country domestically, address the nation’s most pressing challenges, improve lives and communities, and strengthen civic engagement. Each year, the agency places more than 200,000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers in intensive service roles; and empowers millions more to serve as long-term, short-term, or one-time volunteers. Learn more at Americorps.gov.