We talk about infrastructure all the time in this country.
We write checks to repair it.
We fight about where to build it.
But we forget that the strongest infrastructure isn’t always concrete and steel.
Sometimes, it’s a person.
A presence.
A promise: I’ll be here again next week.
AmeriCorps has quietly filled that role in schools across the country for decades — especially in the communities that get the least, expect the least, and still show up every day trying to give kids more.
And when AmeriCorps disappears, it’s not just lost hours.
It’s lost trust. Lost safety. Lost second chances.
It’s infrastructure collapse — but without the headlines.
This summer, I hit the road as a part of the #SaveAmeriCorps Road Trip, meeting with programs across California and Arizona that were gutted by DOGE’s illegal AmeriCorps terminations in April.
In Phoenix, I visited the Be Kind Community Education Center — an organization that had AmeriCorps members embedded in classrooms across Title I schools, delivering social-emotional learning lessons, calming classrooms, and forming the kinds of relationships that hold school cultures together.
There, I met with a former AmeriCorps member who shared a story about one of his students, Kelvin.
In early April, Kelvin was removed from a Be Kind small group after behavioral issues. But a couple of weeks later, unprompted, he came back to his AmeriCorps mentor and said:
“I’m sorry. I still want to be part of the group.”
That same mentor told me:
“He’s not the kind of kid who opens up. For him to do that — that vulnerability — this is what it’s all about.”
They made a plan with the principal: One week. Show us through your actions that you’re ready. And then you’re back in.
But that week never happened.
Because that was the same week DOGE illegally terminated nearly all AmeriCorps programs nationwide.
Meet Henry.
From second to fourth grade, Henry was known for blowups — especially during recess. His peers knew how to trigger him. And they did.
Then something shifted.
“Not only was Henry making better choices,” his AmeriCorps mentor told me, “his classmates were, too. They stopped triggering him. They started talking him down. Like teammates.”
That’s not just emotional learning.
That’s cultural transformation.
And it happened because someone was there — every week — to model a different path..
And then there was the lockdown drill.
An AmeriCorps member was teaching kindergarten when the announcement came.
“The kids were crying. One said, ‘I want my mom.’
And I was scared too. But we were the only adults in the room.”
That’s infrastructure.
That’s one-on-one presence exactly when kids need it.
That’s who disappears when AmeriCorps disappears.
As we shared in an earlier blog post from the Road Trip, in Porterville, California, the emotional infrastructure AmeriCorps facilitates saved a young child’s life.
In the Porterville Unified School District’s AmeriCorps program, a fourth-grade student was “just a little off.”
Not disruptive. Not failing. Just… not herself.
Because an AmeriCorps member was embedded in that classroom full-time, someone had the time—and the trust—to notice.
The check-in revealed suicidal thoughts.
“Without that AmeriCorps member doing that, the outcome could have been significantly different,” said program lead Tara Warren.
A crisis averted.
A life redirected.
Why? Because in a classroom with one teacher and nearly 30 students, an AmeriCorps member was present to notice.
This is the infrastructure no one talks about.
The emotional scaffolding that holds students steady.
The extra set of eyes.
The second adult in the room.
The mentor a child runs to when they don’t know how to ask for help.
And when we lose it?
We don’t just lose AmeriCorps.
We lose stability.
We lose prevention.
We lose time we can’t get back.
If you believe students deserve more than survival,
If you believe teachers deserve more than burnout,
If you believe in smart, local, cost-effective government —
Then you believe in AmeriCorps.
Let’s fight to restore and strengthen the infrastructure holding up our schools and communities nationwide.