Archive - December 20, 2021

John Garamendi (Ethiopia 1966-68) joins senators in calling for the inclusion of Peace Corps volunteers in student loan forgiveness By NICK SESTANOVICH December 20, 2021  With the U.S. Department of Education announcing further steps toward student loan forgiveness, Rep. John Garamendi, D-Solano, was one of the lead signatories in a letter calling upon the education secretary to include Peace Corps volunteers in these changes. Garamendi, co-chair of the Congressional Peace Corps Caucus and the only returned Peace Corps volunteer in the House of Representatives, joined Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats from Maryland, in writing a bicameral letter to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in response to a new temporary waiver period for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program that was announced back in October. During this period, some borrowers will be allowed to receive credit toward student loan forgiveness for periods of public service that would . . .

First published on our site Dec 21, 2020 by Jeanne D’Haem (Somalia 1968-70)   On Christmas Eve my family gathered at my grandmother’s house on Jane Street in Detroit, Michigan. Her Christmas tree glittered with multicolored bubble lights. The uncles sat in the small living room, my aunts and grandmother tasted and talked in the kitchen. Cousins played with the wooden blocks and the Indian doll in the wooden toy box in the den. Sometimes there were new babies to hold. I was 22 the first time I could not attend, as I was a Peace Corps volunteer serving in Somalia, and  I wanted to at least send a Christmas gift to Grandma Carter. Newspaper cones of tea, alcohol for the tilly lamps, or the blue and green patterned cloth for sale in my village did not seem worth sending across two oceans. However, when my neighbor showed me what she . . .