Showing Up: A Public Service Recognition Week to Remember
Yesterday, May 5, my Headwaters co-founder Ace Damon and I made our way to the Eaton Hotel in Washington, D.C., for a very special edition of the weekly FormerGov (formergov.com) gathering. Every Tuesday, FormerGov opens its doors to federal employees, current and former, from every agency and every background, including military professionals, who have been impacted by the changes occurring across the federal government. All are welcome. If you have felt this impact, there is a seat for you at the table.
This particular Tuesday brought something extra. In honor of Public Service Recognition Week, FormerGov joined forces with the Partnership for Public Service (ourpublicservice.org) and We Are WellFed (wearewellfed.com) to produce a full day of programming at the Eaton. We Are WellFed, it should be said, is not just a guest at these gatherings. They are a consistent weekly presence and a genuine partner in the FormerGov community, showing up Tuesday after Tuesday to support the people who need it most. What unfolded this particular day was one of the most meaningful days I have spent in a long time, and I have spent a lot of meaningful days in public service.
The day opened and closed with Rebecca Ferguson-Ondrey, co-founder and partnership and program director of WellFed, leading the room through a meditation moment. Rebecca did not offer a generic breathing exercise. She brought the room into the specific weight we were all carrying, the sudden change, the disorientation, and the quiet grief of a career interrupted. Most importantly, she reminded every person in that room that losing a job is not losing an identity. The work you did mattered. The person you are is not defined by a position classification or an agency letterhead. That message bookended the entire day and set the tone for everything in between.
I sat in on the 2:00 p.m. session, Transition with Mission, and I will be honest: I was not prepared for how much it would move me. Three former federal professionals shared their stories of navigating sudden career transitions with honesty, grace, and hard-won perspective. The audience held their own stories with the same quiet dignity. So many people in that room have had their professional lives upended in ways that were abrupt and deeply impersonal. The consensus was not anger for the sake of anger. It was the shared recognition that while change within government was necessary and long overdue, the manner in which these changes have been carried out has left real people without the dignity or the transition support they deserved. The human cost of that is real, and this community is proof that showing up for one another matters.
Sitting in the back of that small auditorium with Rebecca, both of us blinking back tears, I felt the full weight of what this community is carrying, and the full force of how much these organizations are doing to lighten that load. I also realized, quietly and unexpectedly, how much I had been carrying alone, and in that room, I no longer felt so alone.
While I was in the session, Ace was in the main space working with Max Lang, co-founder of FormerGov and principal of Rock Creek Growth Partners (rockcreekgrowth.com), who has become one of Headwaters' most valued mentors and advisors. Max took a look at our website and identified opportunities to make it more accessible and more immediately legible to the people we most want to serve. That kind of honest, expert attention, freely given, is a gift. Ace felt immediately welcomed by everyone in the room and described the energy simply: a space to work and to be supported, where people genuinely wanted to help one another. That is exactly the spirit FormerGov has cultivated, and it is exactly the spirit Headwaters aspires to carry into the Shenandoah Valley.
Brian Levine, co-founder and executive director of FormerGov, invited us to make Tuesdays a regular part of our rhythm and offered everyone in the room the chance to announce their businesses to the group each week. The generosity in that room, from the organizers and from the community members themselves, was consistent and genuine throughout the day.
The connections made in a single day were remarkable. Conversations with speakers, attendees, and people working the room left me with new relationships I look forward to building over time. Rebecca also introduced me to someone exploring retreat programming in the Shenandoah region, and the conversation that followed was exactly the kind of possibility that happens when community is built with intention.
To Brian Levine and the FormerGov community, to Rebecca Ferguson-Ondrey and We Are WellFed, to Max Lang and Rock Creek Growth Partners, and to the Partnership for Public Service: thank you for what you built, and thank you for keeping the doors open. Public servants who have given years or decades to this country deserve exactly the kind of community, professional support, and human dignity you are providing. Headwaters is proud to stand with you.
If you are a current or former federal employee, contractor, or military professional navigating this moment, the Tuesday gatherings at FormerGov are for you. All of you. Visit formergov.com to learn more.
Darcy Ostrander-Damon, Co-Founder, Headwaters — The Passage, headwatersretreats.com
