If things were business as usual, Susannah Burley would be gearing up to spend another weekend planting tree saplings. She would show up to her New Orleans office on Super Bowl Sunday, ready to lead a group of volunteers, pay the tree farmer and delivery guy, arrange supplies for the next day, and then go to bed early to start planting again in the morning.

But things are not business as usual for Burley's Sustaining Our Urban Landscape (SOUL), a non-profit group dedicated to reforesting the city that lost 200,000 trees in Hurricane Katrina.

Last week, SOUL's operation were "paralyzed" overnight by a memo from the new Trump administration. In a move that sparked widespread confusion, the White House ordered a "temporary pause" on its federal funding as of January 28. As trillions of dollars were suddenly put on hold, so was 80 percent of SOUL's budget for the next five years.

The freeze would last two days before the White House rescinded its memo and a pair of federal judges temporarily blocked the order, but SOUL's taps remain off. Funds earmarked by former President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, disbursed by the Department of Agriculture Forest Service and Department of Agriculture, are still on pause for 90 days. But unfortunately for the tree-planting charity, "We don't have 90 days in the bank," Burley told Newsweek.

"I'm so discombobulated. I can't even think straight. I mean, this is just horrendous," she said in a Friday interview.

"We cannot afford to wait this out as we only have enough funding to keep us operational for two months," SOUL's website reads in an urgent plea to its community. "We now have no wiggle room. There is nowhere near enough cash to await the fate of federal 'green new deal' funding for planting trees – and, by all accounts, the outcome will be grim."

The freeze, which came with no notice, put SOUL out almost $90,000 immediately. With their signed contracts suddenly uncertain, Burley had no choice but to cancel her orders for the rest of the season. She also had to lay off a new hire she had just brought on a day before the Trump order came down, and find a way to keep paying the workers who water their trees.

SOUL had signed contracts with the City of New Orleans for $2.5 million and with the Arbor Day Foundation for $1 million. Whether that money will make it to SOUL remains unknown. The Environmental Protection Agency funds have also remained on hold. For SOUL, which is still waiting on a $40,000 reimbursement from the EPA, "that's more money in the hole."

"The economic impact of this is extreme," Burley said.

Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.

Every day that Burley can't be out doing SOUL's work is another 100 tress that go unplanted. And at this rate, it's unlikely she'll get to plant another tree before the planting season ends in March.

"This is the lowest amount of trees we've planted in years," she said. Burley said that when SOUL began in 2016, the group was planting 200 trees a year. Now, SOUL plants almost 2,000 trees annually.

If the group doesn't get a windfall of a half-million dollars soon, SOUL will close its doors at the end of next month.

"March 31 is us spending every single penny we have, and then liquidating to pay off our final bill," Burley said.

Last week's memo said the abrupt halt was to allow "time to review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the President's priorities," which Trump and his allies have signaled to include major cuts to government spending, including small programs such as SOUL.

"They say that they're trimming the fat—we are not the fat," Burley said. "Our city is underfunded, and our tree department in New Orleans doesn't have the capacity to plant at scale, so we are doing that work."

Right now, Burely and her remaining staff are doing three things all at once. The tree planters are planning to shut down entirely, figuring out what costs they would need to preserve in order to guarantee staff unemployment. They are still planning ahead for the next season, scrambling for grants to get there by October in the hope that they can keep operating. And on top of that, all of them are looking for new jobs.

"Our careers are in the ICU," Burley said.

On Friday, the SOUL founder and executive director woke up to find that the mapping tool she uses to plan where trees should go had been taken off federal websites. Without those data points, Burley and her team will only be able to coordinate their efforts off of anecdotes.

"They're just erasing everything—the funding, the data—everything," she said.

Burley said while she appreciates any donations no matter the size, SOUL would need a major investment in order to keep operating at scale. Burley said that task is even harder because of the city's economic base.

"We only have 16,000 people here who make over $100,000. We have a limited number of foundations, and we only have one Fortune 500 [company] and I already get funding from all of those places," she said. "There is nowhere else to turn. So, if we could introduce our work to national funders that would be huge for us."

"This is the first time we've really had government funding, and unfortunately, we put all of our eggs in this basket, and it's come back to bite us," she said.