This Is What National Service Looks Like
A reflection on what I’ve learned from watching ACC Members grow, lead, and belong in the communities they serve.
A reflection written by Annika Wooton, Marketing & Communications Manager with Lead for America.
As the person behind most of the captions, flyers, and emails you see from ACC, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to tell our story. But there’s one truth I keep coming back to: no post or headline can fully capture what it means to serve. The real story lives in the quiet growth I see in our Members. And in this breath of a moment—it feels more important than ever to talk about what this experience actually means.
At first glance, a year with the American Connection Corps could be seen as a great thing to do during a gap year, boost your resume, or re-center yourself during a career change. But from what I’ve seen, it’s an experience that stretches people. It brings out resourcefulness in rural libraries, confidence in digital workshops at community centers, and resilience during late-night project deadlines or first-time public speaking gigs.
Our Members walk into this work often wondering if they’re qualified. They walk out knowing they’re capable.
When I started my work with Lead for America, gosh, nearly four years ago, I actually began in a position focused specifically on Kansas communities and supporting the Members serving in my home state. I moved on to being a Program Coordinator on the national team, where I got to see more of this special sauce that our Members are cooking with. Now - I get the incredible challenge of trying to capture the stories of our Members that span the nation, and try to bottle the impact of our program basically through a handful of targeted pixels.
Yes, our program offers leadership development, certifications, skills training, and professional networks. But the things we can’t measure are often what matter most. It’s the trust built between a Member and a local mayor. The spontaneous carpool karaoke en route to an ACC training. The text at 11pm: "Can you help me talk through how to lead this meeting tomorrow?" It’s the laughter, the community, and the steady, often quiet realization: "I belong here."
I’ve watched Members stay on with their host sites for full-time employment, take on new roles in their hometowns, or head to grad school with a completely different sense of direction. Many also return for a second year of service with us. And almost all of them leave knowing they’ve changed—because they committed to one place, one purpose, and one community.
The ACC experience is messy, rewarding, uncertain, transformative. And it matters. Especially now.
If you want to understand what service looks like in practice, spend a day with an ACC Member. Or spend a few minutes reading their reflections, watching their community videos, or showing up at one of their local programs. The story of national service lives in these moments. And we’ll keep telling it—the best we can.
Learn more about the American Connection Corps at www.AmericanConnectionCorps.org or follow us on social media to get a peek into the incredible stories that make up the ACC community.