Archive - November 27, 2018

WASHINGTON – Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen joined USAID Counselor Chris Milligan to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Small Project Assistance (SPA) Program. The joint collaboration has supported more than 25,000 projects and 2,800 training activities in 116 countries over the past three decades. On Monday, at a co-hosted event held at Peace Corps headquarters, Director Olsen shared success stories and the results of a new, jointly-funded external report that evaluated the program’s effectiveness. “Whether increasing local water access in The Gambia, developing waste management solutions in Tonga, or mobilizing civic sector organizations around food insecurity in Macedonia, the SPA Program helps to catalyze community-led development,” said Director Olsen. “Time and again, we have seen the ripple effect of the program go well beyond a single grant, and last long after the end of an individual Peace Corps volunteer’s service. Now we have the hard data to prove it, thanks to . . .

Featherweight boxer Johnny Hood had 165 bouts in an amateur career which took him all over the U.S. in pursuit of expenses and eating money. Sometimes, he fought five and six nights in a row. In amateur tournaments, such as the Golden Gloves tournament in which he won the featherweight championship of Michigan, he sometimes had to take on three opponents in one night. Born and raised in Columbus, Mont., where the Yellowstone river pours out of the Rocky Mountains, Johnny Hood felt an early attraction toward Mexico. “I was bumming around Mexico one summer when I ran out of money,” he remembers. “I decided I would take my boxing and turn pro, but I didn’t know enough Spanish at the time to tell whether the agent said I would get 60 pesos for four rounds or four pesos for 60 rounds. You can guess which figure was correct.” Before . . .

Let’s see–four years prep school…Princeton, Magna Cum Laude…three years Harvard Law School….two years Peace Corps….” The Saturday Post, 1963