Earlier this month, Service Year Alliance celebrated 11 outstanding Americans united by a common experience – a service year. They served in Buffalo and Missoula, built homes in the Bay Area, helped community members find safe and affordable housing in Salt Lake City, and provided free vision care for students on the South Side of Chicago.
And, while impressive, their 20 collective service years are just half the reason why they were identified by our organization as Service Year Alums Awards Honorees in 2025.
Today, they’re doctors-in-training and global education consultants, law students and lawyers, volunteers and data scientists. Their accomplishments in post-service professional, academic, and volunteer settings exemplify the unwavering commitment to service and impact we sought to celebrate and offer a reminder about the true strength and character of everyday citizens.
Here is just some of what they can teach us about our country and each other:
Service Propels Us
Logan Beyer found direction – and an unexpected talent for striking a nail with a hammer – in back-to-back service years with Habitat for Humanity.
While serving, she saw firsthand how the factors accounting for where someone lives can affect their health and well-being. She met parents stuck in high-crime neighborhoods too afraid to let their children play outside, and children with asthma struggling to breathe thanks to moldy carpets in their apartments.
Today, six years after taking off her hard hat for the last time, Logan’s doctoral work at Harvard Medical School specifically examines how, when, and where neighborhoods impact children.
Logan’s post-service path reflects what many alums have shared with us – a year of service positively impacts communities and corps members alike.
Service Connects Us to the World
Don Holly and Brendan Csaposs grew up worlds apart and pursued drastically different service experiences.
As a Peace Corps Volunteer, Don Holly helped growers in Jamaica adopt modern farming techniques and adapt to modern ways of doing business. Today, he continues his service as a Program Analyst for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Brendan Csaposs’ service years were largely spent within classrooms in New York City and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As an AmeriCorps member with Jumpstart, Teach for America, and City Year, Brendan honed his expertise in schools and education systems to now serve as a global education consultant based in Nairobi, Keyna.
Don and Brendan represent America at its strongest, when “the face of America” abroad, as former Secretary of State Colin Powell observed, includes the Peace Corps volunteer, U.S. diplomat, or aid worker.
Service Brings Us Together
Service years have a unique way of bringing people together across lines of difference, an impact of service we’ve explored through our Bridging Divides in National Service Initiative.
It was more than just helping people find housing,” Jordan shared with us, “it was about helping them reclaim stability, security, and a sense of belonging.
Jordan Bohlen
Volunteer
Jordan Bohlen served with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Salt Lake City, helping newly arrived refugees and other vulnerable populations find safe, healthy, and affordable housing. Jordan’s mission was to help clients – many of whom did not speak English and had no rental history in the United States – navigate this landscape amid a post-pandemic housing shortage.
“It was more than just helping people find housing,” Jordan shared with us, “it was about helping them reclaim stability, security, and a sense of belonging.”
In the years since then, Jordan remains committed to helping refugee and immigrant families find a home in the Salt Lake area.
