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National service has long enjoyed overwhelming public support as well as eight decades of strong bipartisan legislative support. Nonetheless, President Trump’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 budget calls for the elimination of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency that administers national service programs including AmeriCorps (which funds Public Allies) and Senior Corps.

The final word on the budget rests with Congress. And soon after news broke that funding to AmeriCorps was at risk, countless #paalum from across the country began to raise their voices to defend it.

“AmeriCorps is a program of vision,” said Ben Darby, a graduate of Public Allies Cincinnati in 2010, in a video plea he posted to his Youtube page. “If we want to remain a nation of vision, we need to support programs like it. AmeriCorps is good, AmeriCorps does good. Please preserve it.”

Below, you can hear Ben’s case for saving National Service, and see the posts of other alumni who have seized the moment to speak up and be heard on behalf of a program that they know firsthand really does make a difference.

Public Allies