I APPLAUD the partnership between the City of Boston’s Circle of Promise and LIFT-Boston (“City partners with group to link families to resources,’’ Metro, June 23). What is left unsaid in the article is that the important community work being done by organizations such as LIFT-Boston would surely suffer without the critical infusion of AmeriCorps, a national program that is in danger of being gutted by Congress.
There are four other AmeriCorps members serving in the other LIFT offices in Massachusetts and another 24 nationwide. This year there are more than 2,700 AmeriCorps members who serve in Massachusetts as classroom tutors, running after-school programs, helping to connect young people with caring adult mentors, providing legal counsel to low-income families, or cleaning up beaches and parks.
Nonprofit organizations such as LIFT are critical to making our communities work, and AmeriCorps is an integral part of that success that we should protect.
Emily Haber
CEO
Massachusetts Service Alliance
Boston
The alliance is a nonprofit that acts as the state commission on service and volunteerism and administers AmeriCorps in Massachusetts.