Across the country, Americans are searching for deeper connection: to one another, to their communities, to a shared sense of purpose. At the same time, trust feels increasingly fragile, social isolation remains widespread, and many people are looking for concrete ways to bridge divides that can often feel too large or too entrenched to overcome.

Service offers one meaningful place to begin. By inviting people to work alongside one another in pursuit of a shared goal, service creates opportunities for connection that are grounded in action, presence, and mutual responsibility. It can help young people cultivate empathy, confidence, and civic-mindedness; help communities build bridges across lines of difference; and help institutions create more durable pathways into leadership, belonging, and public life.

During NationSwell’s MainStage event Restoring Social Connection in America: Common Purpose Through Service and Community Engagement on June 8, 2026, panelists explored how service can function as both a personal and collective pathway — supporting young people as they move between education and career readiness, strengthening mentorship and intergenerational relationships, and helping communities build the infrastructure needed to make connection possible at scale.

Our featured panelists included Secretary Jonny Dorsey, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Service and Civic Innovation, and Senior Advisor to Maryland Governor Wes Moore; Jennifer Hoos Rothberg, Executive Director, Einhorn Collaborative; Aneesh Sohoni, CEO, Teach for America; Ginneh Baugh, Chief Impact Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America; and Greg Weatherford II, Director, The Allstate Foundation and Social Impact.

The conversation offered a hopeful reminder that restoring social connection does not require waiting for perfect conditions — it can begin through small, practical invitations to serve, to mentor, to lead, to listen, and to show up for one another. Some of the key insights from the discussion appear below.

Watch the event in full:

Takeaways:

  • Service can be a threshold experience. Early experiences with service can shift the way young people engage with the world around them, helping them to cultivate empathy, curiosity, and civic-mindedness in ways that ultimately strengthen social cohesion.
  • Service helps young people create career pathways out of purpose. Research shows that today’s young people crave purpose-driven careers and experiences — an opportunity to position service as a meaningful first step toward leadership, human skills, and long-term professional growth.
  • Mentorship is a practical antidote to social isolation. Connection requires presence and mutuality, not credentials or perfection. Mentorship opportunities are a portable, accessible way to help people build trust, feel seen, and cultivate relationships across lines of difference.
  • Youth-led service strengthens communities. Research shows that youth-led service can help meaningfully strengthen career readiness, connection, and resilience, making it both a viable career development strategy and community impact strategy.
  • Government, philanthropy, nonprofits, businesses, and local institutions all have a role to play in making service possible at scale. The Maryland Corps/Service Year Option is just one example of how service can address real public problems, bridge social divides, and connect young people to workforce opportunities.
  • Invite young people into service early, and make the pathway visible. Young people are ready to lead, but adults and institutions have a responsibility to invite them in. Speaking to young people early and often about service as a meaningful pathway to leadership and purpose can create the necessary first conditions for them to take a meaningful leap.

Key Quotes:

“As human beings, we are social animals. We find meaning through connection; we find love in our relationships with each other. Social connection is not a nice-to-have; this is a necessity for individual and collective thriving. The most important moments in your life likely have to do with other human beings who you felt loved by and engaged with.”

— Jennifer Hoos Rothberg, Executive Director, Einhorn Collaborative

“Our current college generation wants purpose-driven careers, and they’re thinking deeply about community. Put yourself in the shoes of an average 22-year-old: it was sometime during elementary school that social media came to be for them, and it was sometime during middle school and high school that they confronted the pandemic. Both have been drivers of social isolation in many ways, and so it’s not surprising that they’re pushing back and rejecting some of the institutions that they feel isolated them. They’re in search of being part of a community.”

— Aneesh Sohoni, CEO, Teach For America

“There is a mutuality to mentorship that really doesn’t happen in any other dynamic. One of the things we say all the time is, ‘You don’t have to be perfect, just present.’ Being able to show up as your true self is one of the things that mentorship allows people to do.”

— Ginneh Baugh, Chief Impact Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

“One of the things that really stands out from the research is that 82% of young people are already involved in some form of service, especially when you broaden the definition beyond what’s previously been reported and look at everyday acts of kindness young people are doing. We also saw that there were really strong links between youth-led service and career readiness, connection, and resilience. It was important for us to make sure that that got to live itself out.”

— Greg Weatherford II, Director, The Allstate Foundation and Social Impact

“The beauty of service is that you are solving multiple problems at one time. You are creating value in multiple ways at one time.”

— Secretary Jonny Dorsey, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Service and Civic Innovation; Senior Advisor to Governor Wes Moore