The Alums Committee of Service Year Alliance’s Leadership Council is a subgroup of our bipartisan and cross-sector Leadership Council consisting of select service year alums who act as advisers and thought leaders by bringing service year alumni voices and perspectives to Service Year Alliance’s work. Here are our members:
Willie Brooks
Willie Brooks graduated from DePauw University in 2013, majoring in Classical Civilization and minoring in Political Science. Following his undergraduate education, he served two terms in the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps program FEMACorps, first as a corps member then as a Team Leader, and one term as an AmeriCorps VISTA member in Indianapolis. After participating in those national service programs, he used his Segal Education Awards to attend graduate school at IUPUI, where he completed a Masters in Criminal Justice and Public Safety in May of 2020. His professional background is in Emergency Management/Public Safety and AmeriCorps program management. Prior to his current role with Serve Indiana as the Employer Based Volunteer Program Manager, he worked for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, in the Radiation Program, where he was the Radiological and Nuclear Detection Program Coordinator. He's looking forward to getting to work with the rest of the committee and getting things done for the incredible community of national service alumni!
“Apart from meeting lifelong friends and helping communities around the country, my service year helped me discover my career passion, Emergency Management. Up until my participation in national service, I had no idea what I wanted to do from a career perspective. The skills I learned, along with the professional connections and education awards really proved invaluable for me!” -Willie Brooks
Kalan Cole
Kalan served four years in the Army as an Infantryman. He was a team leader and deployed twice—one in combat deployment in Afghanistan and one humanitarian aid deployment on the Arizona-Mexico Border.
Immediately after, Kalan served one year in the Missouri Army National Guard. After leaving the Army, he served with AmeriCorps St. Louis Emergency Response Team as an assistant team leader for a full term. After that, he served three weeks with The Rocky Mountain Youth Corps on their Advanced Resources Crew. Soon after, he got a job with the United States Forest Service as a Wildland firefighter on an Interagency Hotshot Crew.
“I was pretty lost after the military. Luckily, I ran into AmeriCorps St. Louis ERT soon after, and it gave me an immense amount of experience and skills and led me to the type of work I do now. Many of the members and leaders will always be dear to me as both friends and mentors. I wouldn’t be the person I am now if it weren’t for my time with AmeriCorps. For this, I’ll always be grateful. Even to this day, I still serve as a mentor to new members and volunteer with AmeriCorps St. Louis ERT when possible.” -Kalan Cole
Jaynice Del Rosario
Jaynice Del Rosario is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNPR) region of Ethiopia from 2013-2015. She began her career conducting independent research on girls’ lack of access to education in Cameroon in 2010, where she met Peace Corps Volunteers who inspired her to do something about it. Since then, Jaynice has traveled and worked worldwide including Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, and Nepal, doing international development work that centers on girls and supports their right to a quality education.
While in the Peace Corps, Jaynice’s primary project area was education. She also served as National Coordinator of Gender and Development, designing and implementing local and regional programs for adolescent girls. That work led to the unique opportunity to participate in the early planning meetings that eventually led to the Peace Corps’ "Let Girls Learn" initiative, spearheaded by then First Lady Michelle Obama.
Jaynice has designed and led education and youth leadership initiatives at The Bronx Institute at Lehman College and at the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, helping a plethora of young people get into college. Currently, she serves as Senior Program Officer for the Girls First Fund, a philanthropic collaborative supporting community-based organizations in the Global South that combat child marriage and help girls lead self-determined lives. She has also started a pilot project of her own called the Feminist Idea Lab, through which she plans to directly resource girl-led projects and ideas that can potentially change the world.
Nicki Fiocco
With a stellar career spanning over a decade in the realm of national and community service. Nicki jumped into service as an AmeriCorps member with Volunteer Maryland, a statewide service year program that she went on to direct. Nicki also served as the director of two state service commissions - Maryland and South Carolina - and is now the Director of Programs and Communication with Transform Mid-Atlantic, an organization that provides leadership to colleges and universities in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Delaware by advocating, supporting, and encouraging institutional participation in academic and co-curricular-based public service and civic engagement programs.
Reflecting on her journey, Nicki reminisces, "The best thing that has come out of my AmeriCorps service year was confidence in my ability to lead, inspire, and motivate others. Getting things done is not just a tagline for me: it is a way of life; my year as an AmeriCorps member ignited this spirit in me."
Jason Hatch
Jason Hatch is a retired military officer and a former accredited diplomat. He conducted his AmeriCorps Service Year in 2017-2018 with Virginia State Parks. He has worked in international consulting, macro disaster resiliency, human trafficking, and other international issues of note. He is an entrepreneur with two startups under his belt and devotes much of his spare time to conservation issues, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. He is a father, grandfather, and devoted doggie dad.
“Witnessing the passion and commitment for the environment by younger generations and their ability to apply solutions to difficult problems by leveraging emerging technologies, communication, and based on scientific research were the best things to come out of my service year.”
Chelsey Hudson
Chelsey Hudson is the program manager for the Research Anti-Racism Committee at Seattle Children's Research Division where she supports the design and implementation of a workforce-driven anti-racism initiative. Within her role, Chelsey is the primary administrator for committee operations, budgetary oversight, and project management. She works closely with executive leaders to ensure alignment with internal teams, external departments, community providers, payers, and agencies on system-wide anti-racism efforts.
Prior to joining Seattle Children's, Chelsey served as an administrator for the Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA program in Chicago, where she managed a national cohort of AmeriCorps members placed for a year-long term of service at partnering colleges and universities to expand and improve programs that impact low-income people on college campuses and in their communities.
As a passionate advocate for social justice and equity, Chelsey is deeply committed to using her skills and expertise to make a positive impact in the world, and to creating more inclusive and equitable workplaces and communities. She is a proud alumna of Michigan State University, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, a former AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps member and Team Leader, and a board member for Meryl’s Safe Haven. In her spare time, Chelsey enjoys crocheting, running, traveling, spending time with her pets and family, and exploring nature in her new Pacific Northwest home via paddleboarding and hiking.
Jamier Jones
Jamier Jones is a proud class of 2016 graduate of Temple University’s College of Education. Initially from Cheltenham, PA, He has lived both in Milwaukee, WI, and Wilmington DE, where he served as an AmeriCorps member for College Possible and Great Oaks Charter School. In his spare time, Jamier likes to support local businesses, take long walks around the city, and plan his personal and professional goals. As a Committee Member, Jamier hopes to assist with raising awareness of the AmeriCorps network to interested individuals, members, and alumni to help with their transitions into their professional careers.
“The best thing that has come from my AmeriCorps experience is the experience itself, through making connections that have enabled me to grow as an AmeriCorps member, professional, and most importantly, an individual.” -Jamier Jones
Heather Thomson
Heather has a Bachelor’s in Spanish and Psychology, and a Master’s in Teaching and Curriculum from Michigan State University. During her studies she completed two Study Abroad experiences, one in Santander, Spain studying language and culture, and another in Sydney, Australia studying cross-cultural education.
Heather began her career as a Spanish teacher in Michigan, teaching middle school, high school, and community college students over the course of 10 years. In 2019 she joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Mexico where she worked as a university English teacher at La Universidad Tecnológica de Tulancingo. She also served as a member of the Peer Support Network and helped to support and train incoming Peace Corps Volunteers. Following her time in the Peace Corps, Heather joined AmeriCorps and worked as a Community Health Outreach Coordinator in Native American and Latino communities in Denver, CO. She received training on issues faced by historically underrepresented communities in the US, as well as on how to be an ally to Indigenous peoples.
Heather has also completed volunteer work on several solar installation projects in Guatemala and Mexico, and currently serves as a volunteer board member for On the Ground Impact, a non-profit organization which funds solar projects in Guatemala. Heather is passionate about cross-cultural education, language instruction, and issues of social justice and environmental protection.
