Mariel Hohmann spent a day late last month welcoming a group of 40 people to a new hiking trail in Goshen where she had spent thousands of hours coordinating volunteer trail construction over the last year and a half.

“It was an amazing day,” she said, adding that it was a day she couldn’t have pictured when she started as a land stewardship coordinator and TerraCorps member with the Hilltown Community Land Trust.

Then she returned home and opened an email from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, announcing that $400 million in fiscal year 2024 funds were being cut from AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteering. The TerraCorps program, which serves both the Hilltown and Kestrel land trusts, is funded in part by grants from AmeriCorps. The cuts mean the TerraCorps program will end.

TerraCorps partners with a network of 40-plus nonprofits in Massachusetts and Rhode Island focused on community needs related to local land and water conservation, sustainable farming, and local food systems. This year, 43 TerraCorps members are serving in one of five coordinator roles focused on land conservation, land stewardship, sustainable agriculture, community engagement and youth education.

“When I first got the news, I didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Hohmann, who has coordinated 700 hours of volunteer trail work on the Goshen property.

While she may be out of a job long-term, she’s thankful that the funding cut won’t mean any day-to-day change for the remaining three months of her service time, since both land trusts have promised to cover TerraCorps member stipends over that time.

“I’m lucky because Hilltown Land Trust is in the position to support me for the rest of my term I was signed on for,” she said.

Currently, Hilltown Land Trust hosts Hohmann, a land stewardship coordinator, while Kestrel Land Trust hosts three TerraCorps positions that include two land stewardship coordinators and a youth education coordinator. All four positions will be eliminated due to cuts to AmeriCorps.

“At Hilltown Land Trust, our TerraCorps service members aren’t just the icing on the cake – they are the cake,” said HLT Executive Director Sally Loomis. “As an accredited land trust, HLT is required to visit each of our 50 conserved lands at least once a year to ensure all is well. Our TerraCorps Land Steward coordinates that monitoring program, which taps the assistance of many volunteers.”

These positions receive $26,000 a year, as well as a $7,400 education bonus. Both land trusts will cover three-quarters of this amount, totaling approximately $10,000 per person, according to Loomis. TerraCorps, itself a nonprofit, will also pitch in funds. These will make up for the final three months the TerraCorps members are signed on for, and allow them to finish their terms.

Both land trusts are nonprofit organizations with a mission around land conservation. Hilltown Land Trust serves 13 hilltown communities, while Kestrel serves a 19-town region surrounding Amherst and Northampton.

“Both Kestrel and Hilltown are committed to supporting the work of land conservation despite these short-sighted federal actions,” representatives for both trusts said in a statement. “Both land trusts will find private funding to pay the members’ stipends for the next three months, allowing them to complete the remainder of their work through July. It is an unexpected draw on the organizations’ operating budgets during already uncertain economic times. TerraCorps is also fundraising to cover this financial gap.”

While the land trusts have assured some relative stability for their TerraCorps members, Kari Blood, Kestrel’s community engagement director who also served in Kestrel’s first AmeriCorps cohort, said the announcement made for some turbulence.

“For us, the challenge is it wasn’t necessarily anticipated,” she said, noting that any cuts impact Kestrel, which has 12 paid staff members.

In her 14 years with Kestrel, Blood has witnessed the impact TerraCorps members have made since so many became staff members after going through the program.

“Its a pipeline — it’s really a pipeline for us,” she said.

Sarah Welch, community engagement coordinator of HLT, shared the same. She was a former TerrCorps member and part of the pipeline that led her to a staff position with HLT. She said Monday she can only imagine what Hohmann felt when she got an email saying she was no longer funded.

“My heart just broke for her,” she said.

She added that for the Hilltown Land Trust, “Structurally it’s a pretty big change for us” said Welch, who is one of only five paid staff members of HLT.

Speaking of Hohmann, she said that, “she led thousands of hours of labor – that’s like the perfect example of work put in by TerraCorps.”

Welch added that as part of the Land Trust’s obligation to visit all their sites, “TerraCorps members visit some 5,000 acres of conserved spaces, which is a massive accomplishment,” she said.

TerraCorps has established a TerraCorps Member Emergency Fund and are accepting donations.

According to Loomis, the time ahead will be one of finding out how to fill the functions conducted by TerraCorps members, especially volunteer recruitment.

“We can have volunteers but we need someone to direct them,” she said.

That challenge will likely come in the fall, when a new crop of TerraCorps service members were supposed to start.

Loomis said the TerraCorps program provided more than 70% of funding for the 11-month service member position, and without that federal support, the program will likely cease to exist. That would force the land trusts to raise significant funds to continue their land stewardship and volunteer engagement work, said Loomis.

“We hope that current lawsuits will successfully reinstate Americorps programs across the country, but the forests, trails, and wildlife in our care can’t wait that long,” she said. “We will need our community’s support.”

Samuel Gelinas can be reached at sgelinas@gazettenet.com.