May 2025 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Peace Corps Worldwide: New Horizons

May 19 2025

A Legacy of Service Continues In October 2024, this group’s co-founders John Coyne and Marian Biel entrusted me with the stewardship of Peace Corps Worldwide and Peace Corps Writers. These platforms have been vital resources for the Peace Corps community for more than three decades, thanks to their unwavering dedication and countless hours of volunteer time, as well as to the contributions of Joanne Roll, Noah Biel, Dean Jefferson, and many others. As we gradually transition ownership and responsibilities, we are committed to celebrating, strengthening, and building upon their extraordinary legacy of service to the Peace Corps community. Their work has made immeasurable contributions to the Peace Corps’ Third Goal of promoting a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans, and I fully intend to to what I can to honor and amplify that legacy. Building a Foundation for Growth Meet Our Founding Advisory Council One of . . .

Married to Amazement: A Memoir, by Kathleen Coskran (Ethiopia 1965-67)

May 16 2025

Married to Amazement is both a memoir and a celebration of the life passages we all experience with a brush of wonder and amazement. It’s not a Pollyanna approach, there is loss and error here, nobody escapes pain, but the foundational gifts of author Kathleen Coskran’s life have been wonder, through undeserved luck, she says, and an instinct for paying attention. Like Mary Oliver, Coskran too doesn’t “… want to end up having simply visited this world.” The first essay quotes a fellow Ethiopia Peace Corps Volunteer who, every day, spread his arms wide as they walked down “a clay road that sucked at our shoes in the rainy season and streaked our clothes with dust in the dry season,” and proclaimed, “So This is Paris!” The essays that follow celebrate the joy of becoming a parent (with five children born in five countries on three continents), the love of . . .

The 2024 Paris Olympics, by Steve Kaffen (Russia 1994-96; HQ staff 2003-11)

May 07 2025

About the book The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris had everything: a stunning setting, precise planning and execution, welcoming hospitality and goodwill by the residents and the 45,000 volunteers, camaraderie among the visitors, and the Games themselves. It was an Olympics of fun, joy, and spirited energy for the millions, including many families, that came from Europe and throughout the world for an Olympic vacation and to support their countries’ participants. The individual and team performances of the 10,500 athletes representing over 200 countries captivated those in attendance and the billions watching at home, and gave everyone a rest and refocus from the political, social, and economic issues gripping the planet. Author Steve Kaffen arrived two months before the opening ceremony to observe the preparations and returned for the Games. Using descriptive text and hundreds of original photos, he takes us to the unique opening ceremony, 12 different sports, the . . .

Archive - May 2025