AG Rob Bonta highlights Sacramento-area AmeriCorps programs on Giving Tuesday
A few days after the Thanksgiving holiday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined students and mentors from Improve Your Tomorrow in Natomas to unload deliveries and organize pantry items that he says will support local families in honor of Giving Tuesday.
The event followed a news conference in which Bonta highlighted AmeriCorps — an independent federal agency that employs Americans in volunteer work across a range of sectors including education, public safety and health. He was accompanied by California Chief Service Officer Josh Fryday, and two representatives of AmeriCorps AmeriCorps-supported program Improve Your Tomorrow — co-founder Michael Lynch and Sergio Rodriguez, an Improve Your Tomorrow mentor and AmeriCorps Member.
“This holiday season, I’m grateful for the thousands of AmeriCorps members serving in communities across our state,” said Bonta. “I’m proud of the work my office did to defend AmeriCorps and ensure critical programs like Improve Your Tomorrow continue to get the support they need to raise up the next generation of leaders. In California, we’re not looking for a fight — but we won’t hesitate to defend our people, our programs, and our values when they’re under threat.”
Earlier this year, Bonta was part of a lawsuit from a coalition of 23 attorneys general and two states accusing the White House Office of Management and Budget of withholding millions of dollars from AmeriCorps. According to Bonta, before the case could be heard in court, the Trump administration agreed in late August to release the $184 million it was withholding.
According to the California Attorney General’s Office, more than 6,000 California AmeriCorps members served over 1,200 locations across the state, including schools, food banks, homeless shelters, health clinics, youth centers and veterans’ facilities in 2024.
Improve Your Tomorrow is one of those programs that is supported by AmeriCorps. According to their website, Improve Your Tomorrow aims to increase the number of young men of color who attend and graduate from college and universities.
Sergio Rodriguez, an Improve Your Tomorrow mentor who joined the program at Rio Linda High School freshman before returning as a mentor, says the threat of losing AmeriCorps funding was hard to hear.
“It honestly hurt my heart, because I knew that at the end of the day, Improve Your Tomorrow is an amazing, phenomenal program where they actually make a difference,” he said, “and just pulling away that one resource that they had might have changed a kid’s life.”
Bonta himself was also an AmeriCorps member. Bonta said he worked on a program in New Haven, Connecticut, helping boys tackle issues like poverty and gun violence alongside other college and high school students.
“It was probably the most meaningful service experience I ever had,” Bonta said.
This story was originally published December 2, 2025 at 3:02 PM.
