AmeriCorps Connections

Nicki Fiocco
  • 4.3 (6)
  • Personal Journals
  • Updated Weekly

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. Watch the conversation on You Tube - https://www.youtube.com/@americorpsconnections Follow AmeriCorps Connections on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/americorpsconnections/

  1. 1d ago

    From Goats in the Classroom to Growing Leaders | Destiny Schlinker, FoodCorps

    🎙️ AmeriCorps Connections tells the stories of alumni who were changed by national service. Subscribe and share so these stories keep reaching people. What if your leftover Segal Education Award could make you a better teacher in six weeks? Destiny Schlinker served as a FoodCorps AmeriCorps member in Springdale, Arkansas, from 2013 to 2015. She led garden and cooking lessons in the state's largest school district, where her students raised 12 chickens in a purple coop they built together and bottle-fed two baby goats in the middle of the city. Today she's Senior Manager of Leadership Pipelines at FoodCorps and co-owns Blue Mountain Vegetable Farm in a town of about 80 people. Destiny tells Nicki how garden lessons bring second-grade adjectives and fifth-grade haikus to life, and what it meant when a former student stopped her at a college career fair to say he still remembered those energy balls. She also talks about how FoodCorps rebuilt after losing its federal funding, going from 200 AmeriCorps positions in 19 states to 50 in nine, and the new ways it's investing in leaders. Use this a code where folks can say they heard through AmeriCorps Connections Podcast! Visit website at www.foodcorps.orgemail at apply@foodcorps.org 🍎 FoodCorps programs featured in this episodeFoodE: Food Education in the Classroom Micro-CredentialWith Teachers College, Columbia University• Six weeks, online and asynchronous, with optional live office hours• Built for educators teaching kids in a classroom, garden, or nonprofit setting (most useful for K-5)• Earns a certificate, a badge, and continuing education credits in many states• $295, and eligible for your Segal Education Award• Upcoming cohorts: November 2, January 4, March 1, April 26 👉 FoodCorps Member Position• Full-time, 11-month contract role (August 3 to July 11), renewable for a second or third year• Two tracks: Food Education (classroom and garden) and School Nutrition (district child nutrition teams)• About $40,000 for the term, plus PTO and health, dental, and vision insurance• Open in Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Texas, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, New Mexico, and California• No teaching degree required. Summer camp or Boys & Girls Club experience counts! 👉 Kindred Fellowship for School Nutrition Leaders• Free, nine-month fellowship (October to June) for 30 district school food leaders• In-person kickoff in Philadelphia, about 10 virtual sessions, and a closing Hill Day in DC• Applications open in May and close in August 👉 FoodCorps Leadership NetworkEveryone from all three programs joins the alumni network on Slack, with mentors, job boards, training, and policy opportunities.📬 Connect with Destiny: apply@foodcorps.orgShe's happy to send details on using your Segal Award. Check out our featured partner Idealist for social-impact jobs, volunteer opportunities, and ways to give back right where you are.Link 👉 USE THIS LINK Look for our my guest blog for the Idealist Career Advice blog! 👩‍💻  🍿 Snack smart while you listen — Pops Up Popcorn is a clean, chemical-free microwave popcorn from Somersworth, NH. Use code NICKI10 for 10% off at https://popzup.com./ 🎧 Listen and rate the show on our streaming platform: https://americorpsconnect.transistor.fm/📲 Follow us on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/americorpsconnections/💼 Connect with Nicki on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicki-fiocco/ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    From Goats in the Classroom to Growing Leaders | Destiny Schlinker, FoodCorps

  2. Aug 29

    Ep. 117 Saylor Ogle: I Made Myself Brave

    Saylor Ogle has done four AmeriCorps terms and counting, and somewhere along the way she became "the Lorax." She speaks for the trees, plants them, mulches them, prunes them, and waters them across Knoxville, Tennessee. In this episode of our Tennessee alumni series, Saylor walks through every stop on that path: an after-school program at a Baptist center, college prep tours with Emerald Youth Foundation, a solo term as a Greenway Ranger cutting brand-new mountain bike trails with a trail-building mentor named Duane Miley, an unexpected career in geophysical engineering, and now urban forestry with the City of Knoxville. She talks about the AmeriCorps connection that turned an internship interview into a full-time job before she'd even walked out the door, the friendships that carried into her wedding party, and why she still drives past the trees she planted years ago just to see how big they've gotten.If you're weighing a service year, or wondering what comes after one, this conversation is for you. About AmeriCorps ConnectionsAmeriCorps Connections lifts up stories of AmeriCorps alums — 100+ featured! Honest, unfiltered truth about national service. These alums aren't just reflecting — they're still getting things done! We believe these voices deserve to be heard, and we're just getting started.If this episode moves you — don't let that feeling sit there! 💛 Check out our featured partner Idealist for social-impact jobs, volunteer opportunities, and ways to give back right where you are.Link 👉 IDEALIST Social Impact Jobs Check out our Nicki Fiocco's guest blog for the Idealist Career Advice 👩‍💻 🍿 Snack smart while you listen — PopzUp Popcorn is a clean, chemical-free microwave popcorn from Somersworth, NH. Use code NICKI10 for 10% 📺 You Tube📲 Follow us on Instagram - AmeriCorps Connections💼 Connect with Nicki on LinkedIn - Nicki Fiocco ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    Ep. 117 Saylor Ogle: I Made Myself Brave

  3. Jul 15

    Ep. 116 | IT'S NOT A GAP YEAR. IT'S A GROWTH YEAR | Tavon Johnson

    🏀 From Coaching Basketball to Building Careers — One Service Year at a Time Tavon Johnson didn't just do one AmeriCorps term. He did three — and each one built directly on the last. 🌟Starting as a tutor and basketball coach with Great Oaks Charter School, moving into workforce development with the Choice Program at UMBC in his hometown of Baltimore, and then leading fellow VISTA members through the chaos of COVID with Transform Mid-Atlantic — Tavon's path shows exactly what it looks like when a service year becomes a career blueprint. Now a career counselor with Milwaukee Job Corps (and running a youth resource hub on the side 👏), Tavon opens up about the moment that changed how he saw systemic barriers up close, why "identity capital" might be the most underrated benefit of national service, and why he thinks we should stop calling it a "gap year" for good. About AmeriCorps ConnectionsAmeriCorps Connections lifts up stories of AmeriCorps alums — 100+ featured! Honest, unfiltered truth about national service. These alums aren't just reflecting — they're still getting things done! We believe these voices deserve to be heard, and we're just getting started.If this episode moves you — don't let that feeling sit there! 💛 Check out our featured partner Idealist for social-impact jobs, volunteer opportunities, and ways to give back right where you are.Link 👉 IDEALIST Social Impact Jobs Check out our first AC Connections Podcast guest blogger for the Idealist Career Advice blog Sarah Vagley Middleton 👩‍💻 🍿 Snack smart while you listen — PopzUp Popcorn is a clean, chemical-free microwave popcorn from Somersworth, NH. Use code NICKI10 for 10% 📺 You Tube📲 Follow us on Instagram - AmeriCorps Connections💼 Connect with Nicki on LinkedIn - Nicki Fiocco ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    Ep. 116 | IT'S NOT A GAP YEAR. IT'S A GROWTH YEAR | Tavon Johnson

  4. Jun 29

    Eps. 115 | From AmeriCorps VISTA to Congressional Candidate — Science, Sustainability, and Solving for What Matters

    Michaela Barnett: From AmeriCorps VISTA to Congressional Candidate — Science, Sustainability, and Solving for What Matters What does it look like when a service year becomes a launchpad? Michaela Barnett's AmeriCorps VISTA year at University Tennessee (TU) Recycling in Knoxville wasn't something she planned — she stumbled into it while applying for a different job entirely. But that year handed her three community problems to solve, the freedom to figure them out, and a $100,000 grant for what's now UT's Grow Lab. That was just the beginning. Michaela went on to earn her PhD in civil engineering, where she sat at the intersection of behavioral science, engineering, and design. She wanted to understand not just what needed to change — but why people make the decisions they do, and how systems either support or undermine the change we need. That question led her to start KnoxFill, a sustainability-focused refillery that's now a community anchor in East Tennessee, stocking hundreds of bulk refillable products and shelving goods from 50 Tennessee-based makers and small businesses. And then it led her to DC, as a science policy fellow inside the House of Representatives. Now she's running for Congress in Tennessee's 2nd District — a seat that's been red since Reconstruction — because she believes the next layer of change happens at the policy level. And she's doing it the way she's done everything else: building local, investing in community, and treating the work itself as service. This conversation goes deep on systems thinking, what a service year actually gives you, why we need to expand national service right now, and what it means to carry AmeriCorps values all the way to the floor of Congress.Michaela is #StillGettingThingsDone. Links & Resources:🌿 Knox Fill🗳️ Michaela for Tennessee 📣 Campaign: MB4TN About AmeriCorps ConnectionsAmeriCorps Connections lifts up stories of AmeriCorps alums — 100+ featured! Honest, unfiltered truth about national service. These alums aren't just reflecting — they're still getting things done! We believe these voices deserve to be heard, and we're just getting started.If this episode moves you — don't let that feeling sit there! 💛 Check out our featured partner Idealist for social-impact jobs, volunteer opportunities, and ways to give back right where you are.Link 👉 IDEALIST Social Impact Jobs Check out our first AC Connections Podcast guest blogger for the Idealist Career Advice blog Sarah Vagley Middleton 👩‍💻 🍿 Snack smart while you listen — PopzUp Popcorn is a clean, chemical-free microwave popcorn from Somersworth, NH. Use code NICKI10 for 10% 📺 You Tube📲 Follow us on Instagram - AmeriCorps Connections💼 Connect with Nicki on LinkedIn - Nicki Fiocco ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    Eps. 115 | From AmeriCorps VISTA to Congressional Candidate — Science, Sustainability, and Solving for What Matters

  5. Jun 20

    Ep. 114 | Still Getting Things Done in New York City | Eric Ragone & Laura Rog

    Eric Ragone & Laura Rog | AmeriCorps ConnectionsWhat does it look like when your service year doesn't just change your path — it catalyzes everything that comes after? That's the through line in this conversation. Today I am here with Eric Ragone, Major Gifts Officer for the 40 Forward Capital Campaign at God's Love We Deliver, and Laura Rog, Chief Service Officer for New York City and Director of NYC Service. We're recording from the Himan Brown Charitable Trust Media Room at God's Love We Deliver's Liberty Brooklyn location in Sunset Park — which, yes, is as cool as it sounds. Eric was recently recognized at Gracie Mansion by Mayor Mamdani with the 2026 AmeriCorps Alum Impact Award through NYC Service — an honor that recognized not just his own work, but the 20,000 volunteers and dedicated team behind God's Love We Deliver's mission. Two AmeriCorps alums who found their life's work through service — one who deferred a full-time job offer to serve and never looked back, and one who has built a career in national service from the ground upThe story of God's Love We Deliver: 40 years, 40 million meals, and a $40 million capital campaign expanding capacity to reach even more New Yorkers living with severe illness. What NYC Service is doing right now to keep New Yorkers engaged — and what both guests want anyone mid-service or finishing up to hear About AmeriCorps ConnectionsAmeriCorps Connections lifts up stories of AmeriCorps alums — 100+ featured! Honest, unfiltered truth about national service. These alums aren't just reflecting — they're still getting things done! We believe these voices deserve to be heard, and we're just getting started. If this episode moves you — don't let that feeling sit there! 💛 Check out our featured partner Idealist for social-impact jobs, volunteer opportunities, and ways to give back right where you are. Check out our first AC Connections Podcast guest blogger for the Idealist Career Advice blog Sarah Vagley Middleton 👩‍💻 🍿 And snack smart while you listen — Pops Up Popcorn is a clean, chemical-free microwave popcorn from Somersworth, NH. Use code NICKI10 for 10% off at PopzUp.com 📺 You Tube 📲 Follow us on Instagram - AmeriCorps Connections💼 Connect with Nicki on LinkedIn - Nicki Fiocco Links & Resources:🏆 NYC Service — Mayoral Service Recognition Program (AmeriCorps Alum Impact Award)  🌐 NYC Service — Volunteer in New York City / Every Action Every New Yorker  🍽️ God's Love We Deliver 📦 God's Love We Deliver — 40 Forward Capital Campaign  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    Ep. 114 | Still Getting Things Done in New York City | Eric Ragone & Laura Rog

  6. May 26

    Ep. 113 Shayna Canty: Pennsylvania's Youth Commissioner is Still Getting Things Done

    Shayna Canty didn't find AmeriCorps — AmeriCorps found her. 🙌 From a dermatologist who saw something in her she couldn't yet see in herself, to a service year in Scranton that changed everything, Shayna's story is one of those "just say yes" journeys that reminds you why national service matters. 💥  Now she's Pennsylvania's first youth commissioner in over seven years, a Service Year Alliance Alums Amplify member, and still finding new ways to show up for her community. She is STILL GETTING THINGS DONE! 🔥 If this episode moves you — don't let that feeling sit there! 💛 Check out our featured partner Idealist for social-impact jobs, volunteer opportunities, and ways to give back right where you are. Link 👉IDEALIST LINK 🍿 And snack smart while you listen — Popzup popcorn is a clean, chemical-free microwave popcorn from Somersworth, NH. Use code NICKI10 for 10% off at popzup.com. 🎙️ Subscribe, share, and leave a review — it makes a real difference! #AmeriCorpsConnections #StillGettingThingsDone #NationalService #AmeriCorps #ServiceYear #CommunityImpact ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    Ep. 113 Shayna Canty: Pennsylvania's Youth Commissioner is Still Getting Things Done

  7. May 16

    Tisha Vonique: The Third Pillar | AmeriCorps Connections

    What happens when your AmeriCorps service doesn't just change your career — it unlocks the final piece of who you are? For Tisha Vonique, two terms of national service revealed the third pillar of her identity: health equity. And she hasn't stopped building since.   About This Episode Tisha Vonique describes herself as a "catalyzer of curiosity" — and that phrase alone tells you everything you need to know about how she moves through the world. A strategist, coach, and community organizer based in Central Texas, Tisha has built a life around three interlocking pillars: education, community, and health equity. And she'll tell you directly: AmeriCorps gave her the third one.   "When you made a conscious choice to do AmeriCorps, you made a conscious choice to say and to feel that things can be better. Your experience as an AmeriCorps member was, and is, an expression of resistance." — Tisha Vonique   #StillGettingThingsDone   Ready to Turn Intention Into Action? If this conversation activated something in you — don't just let that feeling sit there. Find social-impact jobs, volunteer opportunities, and community initiatives at Idealist — connecting 40 million+ people across 180 countries with opportunities to do good.   Find your next opportunity here: 👉 IDEALIST    And check out Idealist Days — monthly dates of local, positive action!   Connect With Tisha Vonique Austin AmeriCorps Alumni Chapter: @AustinAmeriCorpsAlums | @ATXAmeriCorpsAlums on LinkedIn   Interested in joining the chapter leadership or showing up to events? Find them on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Linktree. Whether you served in Austin or just call it home now — you belong here.   About AmeriCorps Connections AmeriCorps Connections lifts up real stories of AmeriCorps alumni — 100+ featured! Honest, unfiltered truth about national service. These alums aren't just reflecting — they're still getting things done! We believe these voices deserve to be heard, and we're just getting started! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    Tisha Vonique: The Third Pillar | AmeriCorps Connections

  8. May 2

    20 Years Later, His Mural Was Still on the Wall — Rok Locksley's Life in Service

    What happens when an artist, a restless servant-leader, and a lifelong learner become the same person? You get Rok Locksley — AmeriCorps NCCC alum (2003), AmeriCorps State & National alum (2023), and two-time Peace Corps volunteer who spent decades painting murals in small-town Texas, building youth centers in Eastern Europe, gamifying parks in Illinois, and learning — over and over again — that the work is never really about you. In this episode, Rok takes us through a life shaped by national and international service: from rebuilding a flood-damaged park in Castroville, TX and painting the pool mural that's still standing 20 years later, to opening a youth center in the Moldovan village that literally translates to "Rok's Place." (Yes, really.) He even painted the resurrection scene on the ceiling of the local Orthodox church. Just another Tuesday in the Peace Corps. But the moment that stopped us both in our tracks? When his Moldovan counterpart Vadim looked at him after the newly-built, perfectly frumos youth center was already full of kids, computers already broken, and said quietly: "Rok. This youth center is not for you. It's for them." That's the line. That's the whole podcast. Rok is currently a Training Designer for the Peace Corps, where he brings his art, his gamification obsession, and his deep community development roots into designing learning experiences that actually stick. He's also living proof that serving once is just the beginning. 🎙️ These alums aren't just reflecting — they're #StillGettingThingsDone 🔗 Subscribe for new episodes every week featuring real, unfiltered stories from AmeriCorps alumni who are still getting things done. AmeriCorps Connections lifts up real stories of AmeriCorps alumni — 100+ featured! Honest, unfiltered truth about national service. These alums aren't just reflecting — they're still getting things done! We believe these voices deserve to be heard, and we're just getting started! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    20 Years Later, His Mural Was Still on the Wall — Rok Locksley's Life in Service
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About

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. Watch the conversation on You Tube - https://www.youtube.com/@americorpsconnections Follow AmeriCorps Connections on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/americorpsconnections/

Information

  • Creator
    Nicki Fiocco
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    117
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2023
  • Show Website
    AmeriCorps Connections