News from rural America.

America's 'news deserts' could get worse with massive funding cuts to public broadcasting, federal cuts to AmeriCorps will eliminate volunteers in rural Oregon, and a 140-year-old South Dakota church thrives by welcoming all.

TRANSCRIPT

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

News deserts are more common in rural than urban America, and finding information could get harder, now that the Republican-led Congress has stripped public broadcasting of all federal funds.

President Donald Trump demanded the cuts, claiming public radio programming is biased.

Sage Smiley is News Director at Alaska's KYUK, which lost 70 percent of its budget due to the cuts.

The communities that will be most affected are the ones that are the smallest and have the most to lose.

Past the stations getting those funds are rural.

KYUK serves about 60 communities and 25,000 residents in Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Smiley stresses the rural outlet is one of the few places locals can access news for free.

Broadcasting exists for everyone and has connected so many people to each other and to their community.

Last year, the number of news deserts, U.S. counties without any local outlets, grew to 208.

Funding cuts have terminated a program that served rural Oregon for three decades.

Julia Tilton reports.

The Department of Government Efficiency ended an AmeriCorps partnership with the University of Oregon that sent volunteers to rural areas.

Titus Tomlinson with the university's RARE program says their grants won't be back this fall, cutting their work with communities statewide by more than half.

The damage has been done.

This type of a shock, it's resulted in us losing well over 50 percent of our members.

That'll impact both those communities and the young professionals AmeriCorps placed with local organizations right out of college.

Professor Lauren Michelle Kramer says she's seen those optimistic, energetic volunteers helping food and agriculture for more than 10 years.

That loss will be felt, I think, for a long time just because I'm not sure what's gonna be able to take the place of programs like that.

I'm Julia Tilton.

A century-old South Dakota church is a living example of its town's nickname.

Aberdeen, often called Hub City, was a major railroad junction in the 19th century.

Now the state's third largest city, it's where Pastor Jeff Willock keeps a spokes turning Lutheran Church, bringing together folks of different backgrounds, politics and personal identities.

I'm continually committed to being pastored with people that I disagree with.

Willock sermons encourage members, many who've worked and lived on family farms for generations, to accept people who might not fit into conventional boxes, including those who are gay and transgender.

Church member Kathy Durst says it's a place where people of all viewpoints share pews to worship.

When you hear about churches and how they're declining, I just don't feel that here at all.

We always have new members joining, we always have a lot going on.

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.