Dozens Rally for Peace Corps Expansion: The Headline Says It All

A piece this Sunday morning in the Washington Post by Staff Writer Yamiche Alcindor says it all: “Dozens Gather.” Okay, to rephrase Edgar Allan Poe, “During the whole of a dull, dark, and rainy afternoon in the early summer of the year a few hundred (not dozens!) gathered in Washington, D.C., to campaign for a “bold” (new phrase) New Peace Corps.”

Here’s the early morning report this Sunday, June 14, 2009, from Yamiche Alcindor.

Dozens of Peace Corps volunteers rallied downtown yesterday, urging Congress and the Obama administration to expand the program.

“We want to help the president adhere to his vision,” said Harris Wofford, a former Democratic senator from Pennsylvania who helped launch the Peace Corps in 1961.

Organizers said they hoped to prod President Obama to make good on his promise to double the number of Peace Corps volunteers and allot $450 million to the volunteer program, up from about $373 million the administration already has proposed.

“The time is now for the Peace Corps,” said Kevin Quigley, president of the National Peace Corps Association.

The Peace Corps sends thousands of Americans around the world to work for two-year stints.

The event’s speakers included several former Peace Corps volunteers; Anthony Johnson, Jamaica’s ambassador to Washington; and Timothy Shriver, son of Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps.

The group walked three blocks to the White House, chanting “President Obama, we need the Peace Corps. A bold, new Peace Corps!”