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The AmeriCorps Connections Podcast is a space where alumni, members, and partners share how national service shapes careers, communities, and lives. Hosted by AmeriCorps alum Nicki Fiocco, each episode highlights stories of resilience, leadership, and purpose—showing that while service terms may end, the impact and connections continue.
Tune in each week on your favorite podcast platform to listen, follow, subscribe, and share. Check it out and be part of the ongoing story of service.
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250 & Beyond Shayna Canty
Nicki Fiocco: [00:00:00] Welcome to this special edition of the AmeriCorps Connections podcast. I'm Nikki Fiaco, the host of the AmeriCorps Connections podcast. I'm excited to share a special partnership with two 50 and beyond our American story to share a series of short stories from AmeriCorps alums about what service looks like in their communities today.
These voices help amplify, amplify the spirit of service, and remind us that across this country people continue to show up for one another. Each and every day. So what is two 50 and beyond? Two 50 and beyond? Our American story is a national initiative dedicated to making service to others visible and valued in all its forms.
By re by reflecting on our nation's [00:01:00] history and elevating stories. Today to inspire the future, we aim to realize a vision of a nation united through service. LED by a coalition of leading service organizations two 50 and beyond is a call to action honoring our past, celebrating our present, and inspiring the future, helping us respect our differences and transcend our divisions for all of those national service and AmeriCorps members out there.
Let's keep getting things done.
Shayna Canty: I hope you enjoyed this series.
Nicki Fiocco: Shayna, thank you so much for being on the AmeriCorps Connections podcast for this very special co-branded series of two 50 and beyond, where we are talking to AmeriCorps alums about what service looks like now today, where you're living. So, uh, why don't we just jump into it.
Let's talk a little bit about where you're about your service year, and then what service and [00:02:00] volunteerism looks like where you are. So I'm gonna put you up on the spotlight and I'm gonna hide. You're up.
Shayna Canty: Thank you, you for the introduction. Greatly appreciate it. Again. Hi everyone, my name is Shayna. I am based in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, the Pocono Mountains for shorthand.
I am currently a communications coordinator for my local Meals on Wheels here in Monroe County. I am also a two-time commissioner for my national, my State National Service Board here in Pennsylvania called penser, and I'm also a National representative for America, two 50 through Youth two 50 through an organization called Made By Us and Made By Us is an organization
Nicki Fiocco: yet keep.
Shayna Canty: Ray is fantastic. Highly recommend. Please check them out. They are an organization dedicated to platforming Gen Z and Gen Alpha Voices, so 30 and under individual for America, two 50 and beyond. It's been a fantastic program. I'm honored and blessed that I got to be part of the Youth two 50 cohort. It was myself and 99 other [00:03:00] individuals that were selected across the country to basically work as consultants with national and international brands for America.
Two 50. Whether it was Teen Vogue or Letters to America or our national initiative, we have now for Wish Wald across the country. Um, it's just been an amazing program. I've met so many incredible people. It's just, it's been fantastic. And in that same breath, I've actually met a handful of AmeriCorps alumni as well too, as being part of that program.
So again, that small circle of national service really coming back around to the full play again. But yeah, my service started in 2019. I was selected to become a volunteer coordinator for an organization called Friends of the Poor, based up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Their core focus is food insecurity, food pantries.
They also have a furniture store and a couple other things up there, and I never did anything pertaining to volunteer [00:04:00] coordination, administrative work, or nothing. This was my first. Full-time job, and I put full-time in air quotes because I very much was centered on doing work that allowed me to help and engage other people.
I was just coming out of the hospitality field and I was in between college careers in a whole entire thing basically. So AmeriCorps really. Filled in the gap there in the sense of mind of like, oh man, I'm like, where am I gonna go? What am I gonna do? How am I gonna figure out my life from where I'm currently at right now?
And Americo really filled in that slot. But unfortunately, one thing about national service, it's, it's either a ing or like a onetime thing. And I'm working with organizations now to make sure that that becomes more of a regular occurrence versus like, okay. You know, it's one time you do it and that's it.
We're done. Or you know, we're going to be in it forever. Like there's fluency in how we present ourselves, [00:05:00] how we continue to serve, and how we continue to engage with the community. Um.
Nicki Fiocco: That's so perfect. I'm sorry to interrupt, but two things I wanted to say that's so perfect for this series because that's one of the things, what, what we discussed before we hit recording is that this country was made of folks who do service and volunteerism.
And 250 years ago when we were, you know, bounding our country good, right? Bad 'cause we didn't do everything right. Um, but we were a, a nation of people who serve, a people who commit to each other. And for you to, you know, mention like. Let's keep this going. I want you to double down on and talk through that about what you're doing now.
Um, but the second thing I just wanted to point out is that you utilize national service to reinvent your career and to pivot, and so many people have that. I've interviewed over a hundred now, have utilized national service to either. Figure out what they wanna do or fall into what they wanna do. And similar to your case and [00:06:00] my case, I had no idea what I wanted to do.
I didn't even know that volunteerism was an industry until I was a volunteer coordinator. Thank you for pointing that out so much. So go, go ahead.
Shayna Canty: Yeah, no, of course. And again, and that's one of the things that I've really been trying to. Do a lot more of this year is a more outreach and going out in the community.
I have a career fair coming up next week, and I'm gonna be talking to high schoolers about my AmeriCorps and National service experience and how I utilize my hard skills and fall skills that I learned during that program in order to navigate my career. Now in the nonprofit field, I'm gonna go and talk to the Rotary about my.
National service experience and how you can advocate to have national service engagement here in the community. I've reached out to our representatives and said, Hey, this is a very important program. There's not just hard benefits to it. So yes, of course you could see the building of the houses or the increased capacity and organizations, but there's a lot of soft skills involved in that too.
You know, you work. Conflict resolution. You learn about [00:07:00] communication skills. You learn a lot of leadership stuff. 'cause a lot of AmeriCorps things can be self activation pieces at times depending on your organization. Um, so there are a lot of soft skills that you learn in that as well too. And I think especially now during a time where folks.
In this weird in-between place, like, where is my place? What is my purpose? What's the next step? What am I gonna be doing? I think that having the ability to not just go into national service or AmeriCorps Peace Corps, et cetera, being able to go on any of your community and whether that's volunteering to tutor some students or to be a mentor or volunteering to do some social media work.
I am, I am the marketing guru in a lot of my circles, so I'm very much, Hey, if you need some social media work. Please let me know because digital literacy is a very important issue to my heart. So I'm very much always interested in engaging folks in that space as well too. So, you know, however you [00:08:00] can volunteer and give yourself back to the community what's highly encouraged and definitely something that I would very much want, especially for our younger generation of individuals.
I can't tell you the number of folks that I've. Spoken to through this process of doing America two 50 stuff, where it's like, I don't, like, I'm not really hopeful. I'm kind of a little pessimistic. I'm a little similar world, you know? Like I don't really know what I can do, if I can do anything at all. You know, they have this very un.
They have a very minimized mindset in like how they can go out and engage with the world and how they can go out and make a difference. 'cause it just feels like everything is so big.
Nicki Fiocco: Yeah.
Shayna Canty: But
Nicki Fiocco: I was just gonna say, and this might be what you're saying, what you're getting to, would you say that serving and volunteering is a way for them?
Yeah. Talk a little bit about what you [00:09:00] do in your community to serve and volunteer, and then also what that. Means for Gen Zs. Is it Gen Z and Gen X
Shayna Canty: and Alpha Gen?
Nicki Fiocco: My Gen. I don't know what I am. We, we won't go there on the podcast. Talk a little bit about how service and volunteerism really helps younger individuals feel more empowered.
Shayna Canty: Yeah, no, of course. So for me, I thankfully was able to navigate my national service experience into the current role that I'm in now. So I started as an administrative assistant. Again, zero administrative background whatsoever, but I was able to utilize those skills that I learned as a volunteer coordinator during that time.
And again, combination of that and a great personality. It was like set. I was like, fantastic. But there's been a lot of skills that I've had to learn on the job. Like my first, like when I first was introduced here to my organization, I had to do a lot of bookkeeping. I had zero idea what bookkeeping was, but I learned during my national service, one of the skills that I think a lot of [00:10:00] folks are very.
Shy about, but at the same time, I think it's one of the more critical things, especially whether it's like leaderships, different sectors, et cetera, is that flexibility and adaptability component. I don't, I believe if you are coachable, 99% of anything that you do can be done. Anyone can do any of the jobs as long as you're coachable.
I think that having that level of flexibility is incredibly in, incredibly paramount. Put it. To the development of your successes, but outside of my Meals on Wheels, stuff that I do with communications and things of that nature, with my commission work that I do now, I at first had zero idea what appointments were.
I didn't know that was a thing. I only thought that really applied to like judges and things
Nicki Fiocco: of that nature.
Shayna Canty: But I was like, I have AmeriCorps experience. I have, I was a Girl Scout, like I like helping people. I wanna engage. Let me just try it and a lot of my stuff is very much just give it a try. The [00:11:00] worst they can say is no.
That's how my family taught us, me and my brother. That's how they raised us. So that's the mentality I take on with a lot of these projects and initiatives and they got back to me and said, yeah, we think you're fantastic. We love you. Come humble aboard. Basically, I was appointed in 2023. I was their youth commissioner for two years, so 2025 was the end of my term.
I aged out. I'm 27, I'm gonna be 28 this year. Youth commissioner typically go till 25. Then I got the opportunity now to serve as their community agency commissioner. And through that work I've been able to connect with the organizations that are centered around not just youth engagement, but also civic engagement as well, too.
The organizations that deal with voting organizations that their mentorship programs, teaching programs, municipality, local government officials, like a whole litany of different organizations I've had the opportunity to speak to and engage with and things. As it pertains to how are you engaging young [00:12:00] people?
What do you need from us, the commissioners, in order to. A lot of my volunteer work now is focused on outreach and engagement. I've had a handful of folks reach out to me and say, Hey, can you talk about national service? I say, sure, of course. I would love to talk about national service with you. No problem.
And I'll go and I'll speak about national service, whether it's career fairs or. A Girl Scout event, et cetera. We recently had a statewide forum where we gathered 50 plus organizations together and said, how can we engage young people to get back into the community and to give back to the community? And that was a task and a half.
I met, I had fantastic community partners again that I've met through my, not just my work doing youth engagement, but my work doing national service engagement. They've been absolutely fantastic and paramount in a lot of the initiatives and whatnot that I've been involved in. And again, none of this would've happened if I'd start off doing.
[00:13:00] Volunteerism based work. So for me it started off as AmeriCorps. For other posts, it can start off with Girl Scouts. It should start off as Boy Scout. You could be volunteering for your favorite music festival or your favorite art gallery, et cetera. Like you really never know where your opportunities are going to come from.
So it's best to get out there and it's best to engage and be as present as humanly possible when you're engaging with this stuff. So I say no matter what the case may be, service
Nicki Fiocco: is.
Shayna Canty: An open definition as I like to say, and there will be another time. I'm writing an article that I've been writing for five years of the difference between new age service and old age service, which is the sense of, you know, my, I will say my generation is the Gen Z is a little bit of a in-between era for this, but for me specifically, I'm very much a traditionalist in like, okay, I'm gonna serve, I'm gonna.
Do the best that I can. I'm gonna give good work. I'm not [00:14:00] expecting anything back from this. I don't want any immediacy. I don't want an award. I just, I wanna go and I wanna do the thing basically. So no reciprocation require, but now we're entering into a new age of service where it's like, I want to help, but I want to see the result of the help that I've had.
I want some form of reciprocation in that help being in recede. And I think that,
Nicki Fiocco: can I just add something there? 'cause that's really important. I think that is where we should be going in service and volunteerism, not expecting, I'm gonna do this for you and then I'm gonna get a job. But if you give your time and you give your skills and you give your network or whatever you show up, then I think that we should put ourselves in a position to do some sort of reciprocation of not just taking, but also being able to be like, well, let me open this door and introduce you to this person.
Maybe it turns into an appointment on a service commission, which there's 52 service commissions [00:15:00] across the country that all need youth commissioners, and there are commissions in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. So if you wanna go somewhere tropical. Anyway, I love where you were going with the volunteerism,
Shayna Canty: volunteering, guys, please, and thank you.
But, but no, I mean, and I mean, Nikki really nailed it on the head there. It really isn't. It really isn't about like take, take, take kind of situation when you're volunteering and engaging and doing service and things. It really is as simple as like, Hey, I know somebody. Let me introduce you to this person.
See how you guys get along great. Fantastic. A new person kind of thing. Or, Hey, I wanna really go to this new art gallery. Can we go to the new art gallery opening together? You know, and that's the, that is the portion that isn't like take, take, take. Like we didn't expect anything out of that relationship.
It was just. A kindness for another person to a kindness for another person. And that's just how it reciprocated. So it really is, you gotta be [00:16:00] open, you gotta be willing, you gotta be present to serve, and you gotta be present with the people that you're with. Again, you never know where service is gonna take you.
You never know where volunteerism is gonna take you, so I highly recommend checking in with your local volunteer center organizations or your local AmeriCorps center organizations or your state service boards, and finding out what opportunities are out there and get on out there and help some folks.
Nicki Fiocco: As a perfect way to land. I really feel like that was like a commercial volunteers. That was great. Thank you so much. Is there anything that you want folks to take away from, like what service and volunteerism looks like in the community that you are in? Anything else that you just wanna share?
Shayna Canty: Yeah. You know, and I, and I was gonna say, dang it, I ended it perfectly and I was like, there's one more thing.
There's always some more, um. A lot of our, a lot of our stuff. I will also say this, some of our stuff is [00:17:00] neighbors helping other neighbors. So you don't always need an official, like you don't need a Meals on Wheels. We are nice to have and I love that we exist 'cause that's why I have a job, but. At the end of the day, our community members help one another.
Like we knock on our neighbor's doors, we cook meals for folks. Folks have strong church communities, so church members will help them to doctor's appointments and things of that nature. It doesn't have to be as set and dry as a Meals on Wheels. That's something that gives you inside. It could really be as something as small as knocking on your neighbor's door, you know?
Checking in on somebody in your family you haven't talked to in a long time. If there is a. Child that's waiting at the bus stop waiting out there with them and saying, Hey, I see that you're by yourself. I don't want you getting snatched up. And some folks have done that. You know, they'll walk kids to and from school 'cause they know the areas are unsafe.
So it really is about that self activation as well when it comes to getting out and [00:18:00] serving other folk. So if you're like. More if you're more into wanting to volunteer, nonprofits are fantastic, but don't be afraid to get out there. If you see something that you're like, eh, this needs a change, don't be afraid to be like, okay, I'm gonna just go out and do it.
I'm gonna go and help this student, or I'm gonna walk somebody's dog, or I'm gonna help my neighbor go to the doctor, or I'm gonna cook this meal for somebody. Don't be afraid to do that either. Self activation is absolutely fantastic in service as well too.
Nicki Fiocco: That's so perfect. I love that self activation.
Put it on a shirt.
Shayna Canty: Self activation is important. Thank you guys.
Nicki Fiocco: Uh, this has been so great. Thank you again for being a guest on the AmeriCorps Connections Podcast for this special two 50 and beyond series. This was so awesome. Folks, if you're loving this content, then don't forget to like and subscribe, of course, because it changes the algorithms and it brings this content up into, if you're watching this on YouTube, but then also rating on your streaming podcast.
So thank you [00:19:00] so much and we'll be back with another alumni soon. Take care.