You didn’t just cut a program. You cut the volunteers. The ones who woke before dawn in unfamiliar towns, shoved themselves into old vans, and drove straight toward the disaster when everyone else turned around. The ones who walked into the wreckage with nothing but blistered hands, steel-toed boots, and a promise: We’re here. We’re not leaving. You cut the twenty-somethings who slept on gym floors, rationed peanut butter, wiped tears in silence, and held space for grief that had no language. You cut the ones who made hope tangible in places that hadn’t seen it in years.
You cut the teams that rebuilt what storms took. The ones who shoveled moldy insulation from flooded basements. The ones who cleared trees from crushed roofs. The ones who read bedtime stories in shelters held together with duct tape and plywood. They weren’t chasing résumés or headlines. They showed up because no one else would. They were the first hands on scene, the last to leave, and often the only reason a town could begin to breathe again.
You didn’t just move numbers on a spreadsheet. You erased lifelines. For forty million dollars—a budget line smaller than what some departments spend on catering or software licenses—you severed the connection between real people and the help they so desperately needed. You removed the boots-on-the-ground response that showed up with empathy, not ego. That figure may feel insignificant from where you sit, but out here, it meant tarps on roofs, meals on tables, and the simple knowledge that someone still cared.
And in case you’ve forgotten what forty million dollars actually looks like: It’s less than what Americans spend on Halloween costumes—for their pets. It’s less than a single fighter jet engine that may never leave the tarmac. It’s less than what’s lost every year in unclaimed airline vouchers and expired gift cards. It’s less than what a major streaming service earns in a single day. It’s less than what gets quietly shuffled around for conference food at federal meetings that change absolutely nothing.
You didn’t just cut funding. You cut people. And not in the abstract. You cut teams I stood beside.
I know, because I was there. I served from 2016 to 2018. My first year, I was placed with Team Silver 5. We weren’t polished—we were scrappy, stubborn, exhausted, and wildly determined. We worked ourselves to the bone for strangers who never forgot us. We patched roofs in towns that hadn’t seen federal help in decades. We cleared brush on forgotten trails so elders could reach clinics. We hauled sandbags in the rain, unloaded trucks in the cold, and prayed our vans would survive one more mile. We sat in silence with people who had lost everything—and then we got up and did it all again. We didn’t need recognition. We needed to serve. And we did.
And in 2017, I served again—this time with an extraordinary group of leaders and teammates who understood the weight of the work. They weren’t just supervisors. They were anchors. They carried the logistics, the pressure, the emotional aftermath so the rest of us could keep standing. They didn’t just manage teams; they held us together. They reminded us—when the nights got long, when the storms got worse, when hope started to crack—that our presence still mattered. They showed up every day with blistered feet and tired eyes and kept leading anyway. Not because it was easy, but because it was necessary.
These were not abstract “volunteers.†They were—and are—real people. Flesh and blood and heartbeat and stubbornness. People who gave everything. We lived shoulder to shoulder. We laughed in the face of chaos. We cried when no one was looking. We carried the emotional wreckage no paycheck could ever cover.
And now, with the stroke of a pen, you’ve told them they never mattered.
You’ve told future volunteers their sacrifice is expendable. That the heart of service is worth less than a bottom line. That the small towns and broken neighborhoods of this country no longer deserve a cavalry.
So yes, you made your cut. But we are still here. Still remembering. Still carrying the weight of what we built—and what you chose to tear down. Still showing up. Still believing.
And we will not forget.
—Trash Panda
P.S
I need to take a second and thank Brandon Shepard.
Brandon Shepard, my old friend, is the reason this letter exists. He reminded me that silence is how the work dies.
He reminded me that what we did—together—mattered, and still does.
