Despite federal funding chaos, United Way commits to another year of Preschool Service Corps.

Sara Rubin here, happy to report on a glimmer of good news despite the whiplash of federal funding uncertainty. Last week, the board of United Way Monterey County approved a plan to continue the Monterey County Preschool Service Corps for another year. 

Up to 30 Corps members will tutor young children enrolled in Head Start programs in classrooms throughout Monterey County in the 2025-26 school year. That’s a win-win for the kids who get extra attention, and the young people considering a career in early childhood education. That’s a career pipeline that everyone I have spoken to agrees needs a boost; the number of Head Start spots funded for Monterey County’s Early Learning Program this year is shrinking, due to a lack of staff. 

The program had been humming along normally since 2020, but I only learned about it earlier this year when abrupt federal cuts to AmeriCorps meant shutting down the program midyear. The feds notified the state which notified the local grant recipient (United Way) that the funding stream was over. United Way scrambled to find money to keep the tutors paid through the end of the school year, but weren’t sure about what was next.

They’ve now won a grant from the state for up to $500,000 for up to 30 tutors to serve next year. They’re recruiting (you can apply now online) on an accelerated timeline, hoping to get people trained and into classrooms by Oct. 1. (United Way must raise matching funds, and will collect a portion of the grant relative to how many Service Corps members there are; given the accelerated timeline, United Way Monterey County CEO Katy Castagna expects closer to 15 than 30.) 

“We are proud of the program, and if there's any chance to continue it we want to give it our all,” Castagna says. 

There is still continued uncertainty. Castagna worries about reimbursement actually materializing or not. “But the bigger risk that keeps me up at night,” she says, “is asking people to become an AmeriCorps member and make plans and then at some point have it interrupted. That sounds hypothetical, but we've all experienced it now.” 

Longer term, it’s unclear what will happen to AmeriCorps; no appropriations have been approved beyond this fiscal year. 

I find that the discourse and the dollar figures being debated in Washington can feel very abstract. This program is just one example of real, local people and real, local initiatives caught in the crossfire. Private philanthropy can help fill the gap, but sums are so big it’s hard to begin to know which holes to patch first. And as my colleague Erik Chalhoub reported earlier this week, nonprofits themselves are also feeling the squeeze. 

It’s hard to know what to do, but patching this one hole is something. “It's easy to throw up your hands and say, ‘Where do we start?’” Castagna says. “It's nice to have some touchpoints.”

In times like these, something is better than nothing.