Local social services programs hold on, worrying about possible Trump administration cuts

By Cynthia Prairie
©2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Area social service organizations – those nonprofits that support folks who face food insecurity, send their kids to a Head Start program or can’t afford home heating – are hunkering down for what they see as a bumpy ride as the Trump administration takes a chainsaw to federal agencies and financial support.

The Chester Telegraph spoke with the heads of three organizations — Neighborhood Connections, the Chester-Andover Family Center and SEVCA — to find out if any programs could be jeopardized and if so which ones.

Chester-Andover Family Center: Federal grants are ‘gravy’

 Anne Lamb, a speech language pathologist, is president of the board of the Chester-Andover Family Center, which is located on Route 103 in Chester and serves individuals and families in Chester and Andover. Of the three organizations we profile, the Family Center was the only one not concerned about actions on a federal level.

“We are seeing no impacts” from the federal freezes and cuts, she said in an interview in mid-February. “Our revenue for the Food Shelf comes from both sales at the Thrift Shop and donations, which helps with the Food Shelf and the financial assistance program for community members. When they are unable to pay a bill, we can offer support. It can be fuel or rent assistance, car repairs and we evaluate each request on an individual basis.”

The Family Center does get federal grants. But Lamb says, “All the grants that we have applied for have come through … Grant money is the gravy and we have set up our funding sources so that we aren’t dependent on it.  … We aren’t naive. We are being thoughtful about the possibilities. But at this stage in the game we cannot say that there has been a negative impact.

Lamb adds, “We are going to be watching trends of sales in the Thrift Shop and we expect that, with costs rising, we will see a rise in requests for financial assistance and food support.”

What to pay attention to: The Vermont Foodbank does supply some food to both the Chester-Andover Food Shelf and Londonderry’s Food Pantry.  About 15 percent of the Foodbank’s operating fund is federal, through the Farm Bill, which is more than two years past reauthorization, according to CEO John Sayles. He adds, however, the federal monies they are drawing from now “appear to be safe.”

However,  “The budget blueprint recently passed by the U.S. Senate, and the one likely to be passed by the U.S. House, contain about $1 trillion in cuts to agriculture programs,” Sayles wrote in an email to The Telegraph.  “If cuts of that size do happen, it will likely mean cuts … that will impact our network partners,” including the Chester-Andover Family Center and the Londonderry Food Pantry “by increasing demand if folks are getting less in 3 Squares VT (SNAP) benefits, and in less federal food available.”

Still, “At this point, any reductions are speculation,” he says, adding, “We don’t know what Congress or the USDA are going to do, and it is very hard to make predictions in the current climate. The Foodbank is in close contact with our congressional delegation and our national organization, Feeding America, is advocating on behalf of these programs nationally.”

To donate to the Chester-Andover Family Center, click here.

Neighborhood Connections: Meals on Wheels and transportation services

Thom Simmons is a Chester resident who is executive director of Neighborhood Connections in Londonderry, the 16-year-old organization that offers an expanding variety of services to an ever-widening audience.

Simmons calls the organization “a multifaceted social services agency that works to improve the health and well-being of the folks in the greater Londonderry area – what we call our mountain towns.” He said that besides Londonderry and nearby Landgrove, Windham and Peru, it reaches Andover, Chester, Weston, Winhall, Jamaica, Wardsboro, Stratton and Newfane with at least one of its services. It is a private nonprofit.

Meals on Wheels and its transportation service are just two of NC’s highly successful programs that could be crippled if the federal freezes and cuts come through.

Simmons broke down NC’s 2024 funding sources for The Telegraph:

• 62 percent from private donations.
• 7 percent from town appropriations and
• 26 percent from federal money distributed through state as grants and service contracts, such as Meals on Wheels.
• 5 percent from community partnerships.

Through its Meals on Wheels program, Neighborhood Connections delivers a week’s worth of free meals three times a week to each household, with a monthly cost of around $10,000. Each meal costs NC about $6, Simmons says. In January, he added, the organization delivered 1,642 meals to 74 homes.

Neighborhood Connections is waiting for Congress to reauthorize the Older Americans Act that makes Meals on Wheels possible. Now, If it isn’t reauthorized by the end of March, we lose $10,000 a month.

Thom Simmons
Executive director
Neighborhood Connections

Between 10 and 20 percent of the funding comes from the state, but the vast majority comes from the federal government, authorized by the Older Americans Act.  Those funds first go to Senior Solutions in Springfield, which is the “pass-through organization and the gatekeeper for 12 meal centers,” according to Simmons, who served at Senior Solutions Nutrition and Wellness director before moving over to Neighborhood Connections.

Meals on Wheels is not a direct payment program, which would have exempted it from the federal freeze.

Simmons said that the state has said that it would provide funds to make up for the freeze. In the meantime, Meals on Wheels program administrators around the country are waiting for Congress to reauthorize the Older Americans Act that makes the program possible. It has to be reauthorized every five years and was scheduled to be reauthorized in 2024 but was not. Now, “If it isn’t reauthorized by the end of March, we lose $10,000 a month,” says Simmons.

But it’s not only meals that NC’s “army of drivers” delivers. Simmons says, “We are the extra set of eyes and ears on those 75 homes and not a single week goes by that I am not in contact with a doctor or nurse or EMT because one of drivers has detected a medical issue with one of these people.”

Simmons outlines four scenarios:

• “Hopefully the Older Americans Act is reauthorized and the money will still come in;
• The state will step up;
• We’ll hold a big and loud fundraising campaign;
• Down the line, we’ll launch a business operation that will fund Meals on Wheels in much the same way that the Family Center in Chester has the Thrift Shop funding the Food Shelf.”

Neighborhood Connections also provides non-emergency medical transportation to residents throughout the region, including trips to chemotherapy, dialysis and regular doctors appointments. It also provides transportation for shopping and social outings. Last year, it provided 2,900 trips.

To fund the transportation program, the organization provides a $10,000 match, while federal and state funding combined  to provide $40,000 toward its $200,000 cost. “We do have seven paid drivers and a bunch of volunteers.  The cost includes maintenance, gasoline, insurance, all that comes into play,” Simmons says. 

Currently on hold is a $220,000 federal grant for 2025 that would pay for operations and the purchase of two electric vehicles and charging station.  Also on hold is an $8,000 Partnership for Success grant to assist with substance abuse prevention.

You can donate to Neighborhood Connections by clicking here.

SEVCA: Head Start and a busy weatherization program

Josh Davis is the relatively new executive director of  Southeastern Vermont Community Action, commonly called SEVCA. The Brattleboro resident has been in the post for just over a year and has worked to raise the profile of its services throughout the region. Its main offices are located off Interstate 91 in Westminster.

SEVCA’s work is wide-ranging and far flung, with branches from Brattleboro north to White River Junction. “We have a family services department dealing with housing security, rentals, crisis fuel program,” he says.

And SEVCA also runs two Head Start programs — one in Chester and one in Springfield  — to get pre-school children from low-income families ready for school and a weatherization program that helps low-income people bring their fuel and electricity costs down.

“Head Start was targeted early in this (Trump) administration,” Davis says, adding that he expected “some scrutiny if not a move toward defunding.” As of right now, though, “we aren’t yet seeing legislation out there to zero-out Head Start.”  SEVCA’s two locations serve 45 in four classrooms. “These are completely funded by the federal government … at $1.2 million a year.” Federal funds, he said were frozen for about two days, but “as of this point we have been able to access our payments.”

Each classroom has a teacher and support staff. “Head Start is more than just day-care. It’s a wrap-around service,” he says. “We engage with the entire family and make sure that that they are healthy and make referrals for dental and medical care.” As a matter of fact SEVCA just received a Holt Family Foundation grant of $15,000  “to help connect parents with dental care.” 

Head Start was targeted early in this (Trump) administration. (We) expected some scrutiny if not a move toward defunding. As of right now, though, we aren’t yet seeing legislation out there to zero-out Head Start.

Josh Davis
Executive director
SEVCA

The other concern is SEVCA’s weatherization program, which receives the “vast majority” of its $3.4 million budget from the federal government. “It isn’t clear how this will be prioritized in the federal spending agenda,” says Davis. “We’ve been encouraged to ramp up” services, by the state. So while SEVCA has “talked a bit about what we do if we lost this funding, we don’t have plans yet. We aren’t expecting a drastic drop in funding but we think it could be a much slower loss … and we are looking for other funding sources,” he says.

Costs for the weatherization program includes labor, materials and administration. It also provides jobs to local manufacturers and subcontractors, including electricians. “We have a cadre of subcontractors – locals who would be negatively impacted if this money should dry up,” he says.

“We go out and help people weatherize their homes … We analyze their homes and assess their appliances, water heaters, dishwashers, light bulbs, as well as weather stripping and insulation,” he says, adding that weatherization also including tightening up windows and casings and fixing leaky roofs and wet basements first, before any weatherizing can be done.

“In Windham and Windsor we have a lot of old homes,” says Davis. “Weatherization is a great way to keeping housing stock, make the homeowners more comfortable and allow them to use less fuel.”  He added that SEVCA is on pace to weatherize 170 homes in the two counties for this fiscal year, which ends in June. Still, Davis says, “We have a lot of people who have applied for weatherization services that are on the waiting list.”

SEVCA is still functioning and is still open for business, Davis says. “If you need support, just reach out.”

To donate to SEVCA, click here.