Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Mississippi Valley has worked with Americorps on both sides of the Mississippi River.
The Americorps volunteers help reach areas that Big Brothers Big Sisters couldn't get to on its own.
Signing up 450 kids with mentors each year.
But the Illinois counties will soon lose those volunteers.
Because Big Brothers Big Sisters says it can't afford to pay for the program out of its own budget.
President Jay Justin says, "Walking away from that was tough, but you got to do what you got to do, to keep your mission strong."
Losing Americorps help disappoints Justin. With their volunteers he was able to match mentors with children in communities that had never had them before. But state delays forced them to rethink their strategy.
"We had to basically front a lot of the expenses for the Americorps program using our resources locally," says Justin.
The state reimbursed the Americorps bill five months late. Leaving Big Brothers Big Sisters paying 80 thousand dollars. Double what it was supposed to match.
"There's not a local donor or even a local finance entity that would consider doing that," says Justin.
Illinois Volunteer Commission Director Brandon Boder says his agency is fully staffed to distribute the grants. And he wanted to see the Quad Cities partnership continue. But he says it's not his decision to make.
"We're very supportive of a number of our programs now for years, and that's been one of our programs that we've supported so, nothing has changed with us," says Boder.
Illinois kids already in the program won't see a change. But Justin says unless these smaller communities try to fill the role that Americorps did the number of kids getting paired with mentors will stall.
"The rate of new kids coming into the program will not be as substantial as it has in the past."
