It’s a Friday on the Tufts Reservoir Quad, and among the bustle of students finishing up their classes before the weekend, you hear the squeals of excited kids. You look to the right, and there’s a capture the flag game going on between local Somerville children and Tufts student volunteers.
Dozens of Tufts student organizations volunteer directly with children in nearby communities, acting as mentors. While some of these clubs receive support directly through Tufts’ Leonard Carmichael Society, many are also connected to larger national nonprofits that run programs all over the country. Due to funding cuts and philanthropic changes, these organizations are struggling to stay afloat, leaving Medford and Somerville children lacking vital services and harming valuable mentor-mentee relationships.
Jumpstart, a national organization that ran a work-study opportunity for Tufts students through Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, was completely cut from Tufts at the end of last semester as a result of funding issues. Jumpstart matches members with preschools in low-income neighborhoods to support teachers, run activities and assist in literacy programs. In late spring, students at Tufts and other universities were informed that the program would not continue into the fall.
“I was pretty disappointed,” Jason Streit, a junior who worked in the program, said. “The idea behind cutting these funds is to make the government or the country more efficient overall. But [this is] taking away early literacy programs for very young children in underserved communities.”
Since 1996, Jumpstart has received a total of $150 million of federal support. In the last fiscal year, half of Jumpstart’s $18 million annual budget came from AmeriCorps. With this money, the organization employed 2,300 college students, served almost 22,000 children and ran 65 sites.
President Donald Trump’s administration slashed roughly 40% of AmeriCorps funding as a part of a goal to reduce wasteful government spending. The decision forced 32,000 people around the country to stop their work in disaster recovery, education, environment and health. Jumpstart was among the nonprofits impacted. Starting in fall 2025, Jumpstart will cut just about half of its sites, which unfortunately included the Tufts chapter.
These funding cuts impact Medford/Somerville preschoolers by removing key programs that aimed to support preschool staff through increasing the teacher-to-student ratio. Additionally, it limits the work-study options for Tufts students like Streit, who is studying clinical psychology and child study and human development.
“It definitely felt like I was making an impact,” Streit said. “It was just like a pleasure working with [the kids], and you could tell, just after the first couple of sessions, they were very excited to see us when we came in. Just to see the smile on their faces and the positive impact that we could make in their personal and academic lives.”
Other nationally connected groups that work with local children haven’t been cancelled, but still feel the impacts of funding cuts. Directing through Recreation, Education, Adventure and Mentoring is another student group connected to a larger nonprofit. Through DREAM, Tufts students mentor children who live in Clarendon Hill, an affordable housing community in Somerville.
“It’s so easy to be in this bubble at Tufts … but just a 15-minute walk away is this whole community of people living in subsidized housing,” sophomore Janessa White, co-chair of DREAM, said. “On the other side, I think it’s easy for people living in Somerville, who are not involved at Tufts, to just be in their own bubble and think it’s an us vs. them and … that’s not the way that it has to be. I think DREAM closes that gap.”
DREAM also gets a large amount of funding through AmeriCorps. This summer, Camp DREAM did not run for Somerville children, leaving many families without another affordable alternative. White fears more impacts may be on the horizon.
“Every email we get … [has] an asterisk saying, ‘Subject to change pending government decisions,’ which is new,” White said. “Our supervisor has definitely talked to us about being cognizant and trying to rely on Tufts more, just in case.”
Project Sunshine is another Tufts student group that is also connected to a national organization that focuses on support, advocacy and fundraising for pediatric patients. The student group holds fundraising activities and packages activity kits.
“It’s a huge global organization and hearing the impact that our one little club can have on such a huge amount of people is [my favorite part],” sophomore Reese Nason, treasurer of Project Sunshine, said.
This semester, Project Sunshine also introduced a volunteer program at Massachusetts General Hospital, where Tufts students will be working one-on-one with patients. Project Sunshine at Tufts originally hoped to start the program in the spring but faced difficulties in sorting out logistics due to employment and funding cuts at the hospital. The student group also saw the impacts of funding cuts through their parent organization.
“We are not able to package activity kits this semester because they are only sending us one per year … usually they did two,” Nason said. “[The funding cuts] definitely impacted healthcare as a whole.”
For children in Medford and Somerville, having a college-aged mentor provides guidance, encouragement and access to resources that promote positive life choices. The Mass Mentoring Partnership reports that 85% of young people with a mentor say this key relationship helped with issues related to their education. Youth who have mentors are more likely to hold leadership positions and volunteer regularly in their communities, as mentors are able to form close bonds with their mentees.
“We talk about the fun stuff, like a boyfriend, but also, I try to be there for [my mentee] when family issues might come up,” White said. “I think she knows that I’m here to talk about these things with her, and I hope she feels comfortable to go to me as a resource for help if she needs.”
The trend of funding and philanthropy cuts around the country has minimized these benefits and impacts bonds that have been forming sometimes for over a year. The 2024 Massachusetts State Budget had a 16.7% cut in the Mentoring Matching Grant. This impacts various youth-focused national and state programs, including DREAM and Girls Inc. of Boston and Lynn, Mass., which also has a chapter at Tufts.
“I did grow up with mentors … and that was always big to me,” White said. “Coming to Tufts, I knew that I was in a position to be a role model. … That’s where I found DREAM.”
The slashed funding threatens the future of these programs and limits opportunities for Tufts students to get involved in the host communities. These experiences are beneficial because many of them may be planning to go into fields in education or medicine. Local children lose vital resources, and Tufts students miss out on civic service, career experience and a purposeful relationship with youth in the community.
“[The kids are] in preschool — they’re so young that I don’t think they would understand why we’re not there anymore. I think that they would feel the impact because … [of] how excited they are when the Jumpstart students [would] come in,” Streit said.
While not every program has been shut down like Jumpstart, federal cuts are still impacting various areas of education and child care, with threats of more closures in the future. As Medford and Somerville school districts face the $106 million reduction in Massachusetts K-12 education funding, the local education system will be further burdened by the loss of some critical resources and support from Tufts student organizations. The meaningful connections between mentors and mentees may be at jeopardy, impacting both parties involved.
