City Year Los Angeles Alumni Spotlight: Mario Fedelin

This AmeriCorps Member Appreciation Month, we’re celebrating one incredible alumnus who has carried the lessons of City Year into the world, continuing to create meaningful change.

We are proud to highlight Mario Fedelin, a founding staff member of City Year Los Angeles and past Obama Fellow, whose dedication to service has remained steadfast throughout his career. After serving with City Year San Jose and Philadelphia, his leadership and passion for education brought him back to California, where he played a key role in building the City Year Los Angeles site—gaining valuable industry experience while continuing to support students and AmeriCorps members alike.  

After leaving City Year, Mario continued his commitment to service by founding Changeist, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping students “learn a common civic language, engage in dialogue, and build community.” With a vision, an incredible team (many of whom Mario met through City Year), Mario has been able to impact the lives of thousands of students. His journey exemplifies the lasting impact of national service, and we were honored to speak with him about his motivation for service, the importance of networking, the inspiration behind his work, and his vision for the future. 

What brought you to City Year? 

Growing up in the 90s in in San Jose, my brother had a lot of influence on me.  He  got pulled into a lot of the world that was challenging, and really kind of destabilized my family. Things got really unstable for a moment, so my family had sent me to a one-week camp, which I now realize was led by City Year, and my ability to navigate that camp came through my camp counselor, John Castillo. 

He was Brown, and he spoke differently than most of the people that I knew. He helped unlock something inside of my heart and my mind that sent me down a different direction- at least how I was making decisions for myself. That was my sophomore year of high school. And that was all in one week, I never spoke to them outside of that one-week camp but I always remembered John and what that symbol of City Year, the yellow jacket, meant for me in that small time that I knew him. And so really it was all because of John, and the impact that he had made on me in that small time all those years prior that I was able to see myself doing something like [City Year] and that inspired me to walk into the office and ask if they were hiring. 

How did City Year shape your career? 

Every time I get a chance to talk to AmeriCorps members I always tell them “City Year at its worst is an amazing tutoring program. City Year at it’s best helps people transform their relationship with education.” Being able to be a part of a very large nonprofit for a long period of time helped me learn to navigate through change, lots and lots of change, the importance of relationships and building your network, and how we manage through community together. We just have to figure out how to stay true and authentic to what we’re doing and that’ll carry the day. 

What is your favorite City Year memory? 

There’s just a lot of them, that’s really hard. I had a really great team my very first year at City Year Los Angeles. It was my favorite team in that I think it was the first time as a manager that I felt I could be responsive to each individual and we just had a blast together. Everyone was on point and everyone was focused. Not everyone got along, but we were able to figure all that out and we just really built a bond. It’s almost 20 years later and we still talk and again, that’s the best part of City Year. You can really hold on to these relationships for so long and seeing people succeed and move through their life is amazing.  

Do you have any words of wisdom for our currently serving or incoming AmeriCorps members? 

Come with an open heart and don’t think about it too hard. Give yourself some space to think differently about the world and don’t get too caught up in the technical stuff. This is an opportunity to move your skills and your own individual strengths forward. City Year is not a traditional job if you’re looking for that. When you’re coming into this, you have to think of it as an opportunity you’re going to gain a bunch of skills from. You have to really look at City Year as another extension, another opportunity, another internship. That is how you get to be in control of how you develop through the year. Stay in control of your own experience. 

Learn more about Mario’s organization, Changeist, here.