Trump administration cuts sent a Cache Valley service program into turmoil. Its future remains uncertain.

Austin Draper said he “fell in love” with serving his community while working for a Logan nonprofit that helps people with disabilities find jobs — a role he took on through an AmeriCorps program based at Utah State University.

Draper served in 2023 as an AmeriCorps Volunteers in Service to America (commonly called VISTA) member helping the Cache Employment and Training Center with job training and employment services for people with disabilities across northern Utah and southeastern Idaho.

The program is run through the Public & School Partnership, an AmeriCorps-funded nonprofit housed in USU’s Institute for Disability Research, Policy and Practice. In 2024, Draper returned as a VISTA leader, supporting members and helping expand the program.

But the future of his employment — and the program — has been in limbo since April.

First, the program’s $170,000 in federal grant funding was abruptly pulled, then it was partially restored after a federal lawsuit. After that, it was put on hold during a 43-day government shutdown.

Now, it faces an uncertain future as lawmakers in Washington debate funding.

During the shutdown, some VISTA members — most of them USU students — chose to keep working without pay.

“A lot of these folks have such big hearts, and just to see them suffer on behalf of those that they care for, it’s just so disheartening,” Draper said. After the shutdown ended in November, members received back pay, he said, but for weeks there were no guarantees.

“Many of our members were struggling and asking, ‘Do I have to, like, go back to my parents’ house? Do I have to take out a loan for my car payment?’” Draper said. “And there were just a lot of really tough questions that a lot of times we just had to say, ‘We don’t know.’”

Living on one paycheck

That uncertainty rippled through the program’s participants, including at the Utah Assistive Technology Program at USU, where VISTA member Kenner Mecham helps design and build adaptive devices for people with disabilities.

For Mecham, the tuition assistance he has gotten from AmeriCorps has made it possible to pursue a bachelor’s degree — something the 26-year-old said he couldn’t afford previously.

Before enrolling at USU, he worked at the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind, supporting a student who used a wheelchair. When the student attended a school dance, Mecham built a detachable bar that allowed classmates to pull the wheelchair across the dance floor so others could dance with them.

That design was built through the Utah Assistive Technology Program, whose coordinator encouraged Mecham to apply for a VISTA position. Mecham has worked there ever since, designing adaptive devices — including a frequently requested snow plow attachment for electric wheelchairs — while juggling a full-time course load.

“Think like a snowplow on a four-wheeler,” Mecham said, “but on a power wheelchair.”

When the AmeriCorps funding was cut, the assistive technology program kept Mecham on part time, but he took a significant pay cut. After funding was reinstated in August, he returned — only to receive one paycheck before the government shutdown halted stipends again.

“From the start of October to pretty much halfway through November,” he said, “I was living off the same one paycheck that I got halfway through September.”

VISTA members do not earn a salary or hourly wage, said program director Roseline Hill, but receive an $1,800 a month living allowance and health coverage during their service. After completing a year-long term, members can choose either an education award to go toward tuition or they can receive a cash stipend that equates to an extra month’s pay. VISTA leaders, meanwhile, are eligible for a slightly higher living allowance.

A program in limbo

At its peak, Hill said, the program placed more than a dozen VISTA members in schools and nonprofits across Cache Valley. But the four-month funding disruption forced most members and staff to find other jobs, and many did not return.

“I was devastated,” she said, “because it affected the organizations we were working with, but it also affected the communities.”

Hill said the uncertainty also led some partner organizations to step away. Losing their VISTA members without notice “really disrupted their programs,” she said, leaving some organizations scrambling to fill the gaps.

Currently, the program has five members: three serving in Cache County schools and two at the Utah Assistive Technology Program at USU. Another member is waiting to start at a Cache County elementary school, while a nonprofit that provides adaptive outdoor recreation for youth and adults with disabilities is hoping for a VISTA member to join its ranks.

But Hill said AmeriCorps has frozen new placements for members as Congress debates the federal budget for fiscal 2026.

Funding slashed, members let go

The Trump administration, through the Department of Government Efficiency formerly led by Elon Musk, dismantled AmeriCorps programs nationwide in April with sweeping funding cuts.

The program at USU was among many notified by email that funding their grant “no longer aligned with administration priorities,” said Mathew Wappett, executive director of USU’s Institute for Disability Research, Policy and Practice.

“A lot of these volunteers were working in schools with students with disabilities or students from minority, underserved backgrounds … really helping meet the needs of some of these communities where there’s a lack of support,” Wappett said. “We had to let everybody go, and all of a sudden, schools don’t have that support. All these students don’t have that support.”

In response to the cuts, two dozen states sued the Trump administration, and in June, a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked the grant cancellations for the states involved in the suit. Utah was not part of the lawsuit.

In August, the Office of Management and Budget said it would release AmeriCorps funding that was withheld from programs nationwide.

At that time, Hill said she learned the grant had been reinstated, though for a reduced amount of $120,000.

Although she had taken on other work at USU during the monthslong disruption, she said she immediately agreed to return.

Hill said her experiences working for a nonprofit and women’s rights organizations in South Africa, where she was born, shaped a “life calling” to serve her community — a fulfillment she found in the AmeriCorps program.

Still, the funding uncertainty has taken a toll, Wappett said. Potential staff, prospective VISTA members and partnering organizations have been hesitant to commit without knowing whether the program will still exist months down the line.

“It’s really, I think, changed the way that people look at the program,” Wappett said. “It’s become really hard to hire people to work on grants because they’re like, ‘I don’t want to commit to a job that might not be there in six months or a year.’”

Hill said the members who chose to return and continue serving through the shutdown did so “selflessly.”

Draper, who had to scrape together money to cover his living expenses while payments were paused, said the experience was “incredibly difficult.” But it also highlighted the resilience of his colleagues, he said.

“They’re incredibly tenacious,” Draper said. “That’s the kind of interesting thing about being in a position like this, being in a semi-leadership position, is just seeing the most amazing parts of these people that you work every day with, and seeing that they are stronger than you could ever imagine.”