Archive - June 12, 2009

[Thanks to great Peace Corps Veteran Geri Critchley, and thanks to Peter Yarrow, we have Peter’s recent letter to Rep. Nita Lowey in support of MorePeace Corps.] Dearest Rep. Nita Lowey, This is a personal message to you from your buddy, your long time  supporter and your friend, Puff’s “real” daddy. In the vote coming up  next week on Peace Corps funding, we have a SERIOUSLY IMPORTANT  opportunity to send a message to our nation, and nations beyond, that could greatly help  to rejuvenate the spirit of humanity, morality and generosity in America, so  absent from our policies, our funding and our actions, during the Bush years. We cannot lose this special opportunity,  and I’m relying on you, as one of my favorite and most respected members of  the House, to “hang in there” for doing the right thing, as you have in the  past. Though I fully expect that you’ll . . .

This Friday morning, this morning before the big RPCV rally in Washington, D.C. at 2 p.m. in Freedom Plaza (14th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW) to support “Obama’s Peace Corps Vision” the question– which we have never answered–remains: What Has The Peace Corps Done For America? In 2011, the Peace Corps will be fifty years old. This agency is generally seen as the shining achievement of Kennedy’s brief presidency. But what is the legacy of those Volunteers? What lessons can America, and the rest of the world, learn from Volunteers who have served overseas over the past five decades? In the first days of creating the Peace Corps, John F. Kennedy remarked to Harris Wofford that he saw the real benefit of the agency to be in how these former Volunteers would vote on foreign affair issues once they returned home. Kennedy envisioned hundreds of thousands of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers contributing to American society, not only in how they . . .