WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - Federal cuts to AmeriCorps are already being felt in Kansas as programs and jobs associated with the agency are being terminated.

Hundreds of AmeriCorps members in Kansas are now unemployed.

“Math or reading tutoring, mentoring, civic engagement, a lot of different things that encompass that. Those services will no longer be available,” Kansas Volunteer Commission executive director Dr. Jessica Dorsey said.

The cuts are hurting sites across the state like the Bartlett Arboretum in Belle Plaine, as staff positions filled by AmeriCorps volunteers are terminated.

“The other person at my site is also in the same position, so both of us have been let go of our positions and our duties and now we’re finding other ways we can help the community, just in a different aspect,” AmeriCorps conservation education specialist Annika Anzjon said.

Anzjon was working as an AmeriCorps conservation educator at a nature center in Wichita. She found out about the cuts on Saturday, and when she went to work on Monday she learned she was being let go.

“The work we do is so important and the impact we bring to the community is so positive so I didn’t think that it was possible for our positions to be cut,” Anzjon said. “Getting that news Monday afternoon was just devastating and very stressful, just trying to find out what I need to do now.”

Anzjon said that while everyone who lost a position is now scrambling to find work, she is more concerned about how the cuts will hurt the community she serves.

“There were seven of us across the state that worked in conservation education and in the last seven months we have reached over 7,500 students,” she said. “So that’s what we’re losing here. Those are just the students; that doesn’t include teachers, parents, community members that we also touched and we also were able to help.”