The teacher shortage calls for innovative recruitment, development, and retention practices. This qualitative inquiry highlights the Academy for Future Teachers (AFT), a teacher-cadet program for high-schoolers interested in teaching. We endeavored to understand how the varied participants' in AFT (high schoolers, teacher residents, and master teachers) perceived and experienced development and cultivation of their practiced identities of teacher through participation in this PDS program. Stakeholders in three different roles (high school participants, preservice teacher-residents; and master teachers/AFT faculty) offered perspectives on the role of AFT in their respective teaching trajectories through interviews and written reflections. Through invivo and pattern coding within participant groups, participants indicated AFT supported prospective, preservice, and current educators alike while serving learners in our community. Such community-oriented partnerships can create mutually developing opportunities that affirm faculty across university/P-12 settings, serve learners and communities well, and elevate our vocation.