For years, young adults in the National Civilian Community Corps gave back to the western Mississippi city. After a DOGE directive, community members saluted their service across the nation.
At 2 p.m. last Wednesday, word got out in Vicksburg of the firing of about 350 young adult volunteers from across the country who, between deployments to render aid in fire- and hurricane-ravaged areas, called the city’s AmeriCorps campus their home base.
A day later, locals welcomed these members of the National Civilian Community Corps to a feast funded by donations, complete with cheesy chicken spaghetti contributed by a church, four types of meat from Tommy’s BBQ and brownies from what one attendee called “the table of regret.”
Many volunteers emerged from the kitchen balancing three plates, walking between two cheering “appreciation lines” to the picnic tables.
“I didn’t want them to go home not feeling loved and not feeling appreciated,” said Christine Rials, one of the organizers of the dinner.
NCCC members nationwide were terminated last week as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize the federal government. The program, which was set to receive $42.7 million during fiscal year 2025, received $33.7 million in fiscal year 2024: less than a hundredth of a percent of the country’s $1.8 billion budget. It is unclear whether AmeriCorps’ other programs will be affected.
Before the firings, members were scattered across AmeriCorps’ Southern region, which covers 20 states and territories, and beyond. Over the past year, they were “mucking and gutting” buildings in the wake of early April’s deadly floods in Kentucky and putting out “hot spots” along the perimeter of September’s Silver Spoon Fire in Wyoming. And they were in rural western North Carolina the day after Hurricane Helene tore through, going door to door to sign people up for disaster relief and help manage their cases.
Volunteers asked not to be named because AmeriCorps has directed members not to talk with news organizations until they are formally discharged at the end of the month.
“For the last nine months, we’ve been turning friends into family,” said one member, who was scheduled to complete his service next month. “It’s a very rushed ending to something that means so much to a lot of us.”
A Zoom call relaying the news cut some members’ workdays short, interrupting projects in which volunteers had taken leading roles.
“It was just a normal afternoon, and then all of a sudden they’re like, ‘Alright guys, pack up tonight, ship out tomorrow, and we’ll see you on campus,” said another member.
“We were deep into the work,” said a third member, whose team was assisting the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington, D.C. “And to just stop immediately, when we were almost a whole team – and at that point they trusted us. They’re trying to figure out how they’re going to finish what we were working on.”
The NCCC, established by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators in 1992, was modeled after the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed more than 3 million over the course of nine years. Vicksburg has been home to the NCCC’s Southern region since 2009.
Savannah Boyer, a 2023-24 NCCC member, said the program helps provide a crucial “second wave” of disaster response, following first responders, that often goes unnoticed.
“I think people forget that what goes into a disaster is not just the people who are first there,” Boyer said. “It takes years and months of recovery efforts…. I’m not sure how bad it will be, but I know the impact of the missing work will be felt for sure.”
Boyer and others from the Vicksburg campus were deployed to Maui to run a donation distribution center for survivors of the 2023 Hawaiian wildfires.
A current NCCC member, who worked in fire management over the past year, said that fighting a fire on the front lines is “always the fun part. Where a lot of the volunteers come in is the boring part afterward.” That includes reinforcing barriers to prevent the fire from reigniting.
In a city with a strong contingent of federal workers – at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ district headquarters and Engineer Research and Development Center, as well as Vicksburg National Military Park – AmeriCorps members participated in a culture of public service, community members said.
“Everywhere there’s a need, they’re out there,” said retired Brig. Gen. Robert Crear.
Crear said he has worked with NCCC members as president of the Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park on clean-up projects. When Crear led the Army Corps of Engineers’ recovery and restoration efforts after Hurricane Katrina, he said, AmeriCorps members took on “whatever they were given a mission to do.”
“To me, they just represent all that’s good in the next generation coming up,” said Jeanine Hall, a Vicksburg resident since 1971 who attended the dinner to wish the volunteers well. “Character, faith, work ethic, compassion…. You know, just the total opposite of waste, fraud and abuse.”
Current members at the Thursday dinner said they volunteered in Vicksburg’s Mardi Gras festivities, culled books at a local middle school and helped with charity runs hosted by the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation and Grace Christian Counseling Center. According to a 2024 AmeriCorps report, in the preceding year, NCCC members had assisted with controlled burns and endangered species protection in Homochitto National Forest and helped build houses and a skills depot at Itawamba Crossroads Ranch, a residential community for special needs adults in Fulton.
Last summer, NCCC team leaders led a field day for Vicksburg area seventh-graders who attended Camp Discovery, said Michele Connelly, executive director of the United Way of West Central Mississippi, which hosted the summer camp.
“The children at the camp realized that there is a world outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and how awesome it is that all of these people from all over the nation come here to our community to give back,” Connelly said.
Boyer worked on a team that rehabilitated the Edwards Neighborhood Service Center in western Hinds County in November and December 2023 in partnership with the Hinds County Human Resource Agency. The building had flooded repeatedly after a severe storm damaged the roof. The team of seven removed water and stripped, primed and painted the walls.
“It was fantastic to have them with us,” said Melverta Bender, vice president for planning and development at the Hinds County agency. “They worked from the ceiling to the floor…. It would have taken significant time had we needed to pull staff from the agency to do it.”
Long-time Edwards residents stopped by to visit volunteers and share memories of when the building was a school, Bender said.
Boyer, now in college and considering a career in environmental law, said she worries the country will lose more than NCCC members’ service.
“What this program is building is people who are going to lead the community after they’re done, these types of people who are building careers in public service,” Boyer said. “I think we’ll see lasting impacts if they do decide not to bring NCCC back, from not just the work, but the people it creates after it’s done.”
-- Article credit to Steph Quinn for Mississippi Today --
