Kankakee County’s JUMP! mentoring funding cut

Six years of federal funding appear to be all a Kankakee County mentoring program will receive.

The JUMP! youth mentoring program, which focused on at-risk and court-involved youth, operated through the Kankakee County State’s Attorney’s office, will no longer be funded through its federal grant.

State’s Attorney Jim Rowe informed people late last week that the current grant concludes Aug. 31 and his office has been told its funding has been a casualty of federal spending cuts.

The Juvenile Mentoring Program, funded through AmeriCorps, was hit with cuts of more than $400 million, Rowe said, which means the program will not have a seventh year, at least through federal funding.

The local program has been under the umbrella of Carrie Stewart, director of the state’s attorney’s office Community Division Office.

The mentor program has been coordinated by Jeanette Wierer since 2021.

Stewart said Monday that while everyone realizes grants are a year-by-year funding source, it was shocking to see the program, which had been serving 25 youth ages 11-18 these past six years, ending abruptly.

The program typically had one mentor match with one youth.

The mantra for the Community Services Division is: Improving public safety through prevention and intervention.

Stewart is not about to throw in the towel, making it her mission to keep the program functioning in some way, shape or form.

“I’m exploring every avenue I can to keep this program going,” she said, noting she is looking at the federal, state and local levels.

It was in July 2019 when the state’s attorney’s office was formally recognized as an AmeriCorps Service Site, largely in Kankakee County, and awarded a $182,000 grant.

The exact funding level for this expiring year was not stated.

If the funding search turns up empty, then a volunteer approach will likely be explored.

The program partnered the state’s attorney’s office with several other organizations, including the Kankakee Area YMCA, Kankakee County Chamber of Commerce, Juvenile Probation, local employers and volunteer mentors.

Since then, annual funding has been used to support the state’s attorney’s office efforts at the intervention stage of juvenile delinquency to improve long-term outcomes, reduce school truancy and change the path of the youth’s future.

The annual grants have been used to fund up to 25 part-time mentor positions, two full-time court liaisons and a full-time assistant program coordinator.

Many mentor programs hit

In a Facebook post last week, Rowe spoke of the lost AmeriCorps funding, which he said was about $400 million, due to federal budget cuts driven by the Trump administration’s attempt to scale back the size and scope of the federal government.

In his post, Rowe said 26 of the state’s 33 AmeriCorps programs have been impacted by the funding pull-back.

“For the last 6 years, we have been the only prosecutor’s office in the United States to serve as an AmeriCorps service site,” Rowe wrote. “We had a good run, and we hope that mentoring partnerships that have been created over the span continue long into the future.”

Whether the pieces can be picked up and the program re-invented on a purely volunteer basis is something Rowe could not answer.

In a Sunday text message exchange with The Journal, Rowe said program options are being explored. These options, however, would require “significant numbers of volunteers to step forward.”

He said these volunteers would be needed to serve as full-time coordinators and mentors without the benefit of compensation, stipends and education vouchers which had been offered through AmeriCorps.

Grants ‘not forever’

Of course, part of the attraction for volunteer mentors was that program participation would not cause them to dip into their own wallets when spending time with the youth they were working with.

Expenses could be things such as outings, activities or food.

“I understand grants are not forever,” Rowe said. “We knew this one, too, would come to an end at some point.”

He’s hopeful that program participants will continue to see the benefits of these programs and step forward.

He issued a plea.

“At the same time, I would encourage churches, location businesses and fraternity/sorority groups to step into this gap – perhaps they can carry this forward and further."