The Peace Corps

Charles C. Woodard, Jr., “Chuck” of Medford, NJ and formerly of Hastings-on-Hudson, NY passed away on June 11, 2021. He was 97. Chuck Woodard was born in Los Angeles, CA in 1923. He enrolled at UCLA in 1941 and subsequently joined Army ROTC after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. While still at UCLA he renewed an acquaintance with Margaret McHaffie, his future wife. He famously asked her out and when she said she was interested in another man and asked why he would want a date he replied “you’re better than a blind date”. In January 1944 he was ordered to Fort Benning, Georgia for infantry officer training. While there he and Margaret became engaged and set a wedding date in June 1944. Chuck was unable to get enough leave to get back to Los Angeles for the planned wedding so they instead met in New Orleans, where they married . . .

Appropriations Subcommittee calls for a $430.5 million budget for 2022 – an increase of 5 percent. It points to the first meaningful increase in funding in six years. “By Jonathan Pearson (UPDATE – June 28, 2021, 8:30 PM Eastern Time): On a voice vote, the House Appropriations Subcommittee for State/Foreign Operations approved a $62.2 billion international affairs budget for Fiscal Year 2022. This represents a 12 percent, $6.7 billion increase over the current fiscal year. Included in this budget is $430.5 million for the Peace Corps, a $20 million increase over current funding. In brief remarks, Subcommittee Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) referenced the Peace Corps as one of several programs that will provide “needed humanitarian assistance” around the world. No amendments to the bill were made, but that could possibly change when the full Appropriations Committee considers this funding package on Thursday morning.”   Here is the earlier Report from the National Peace Corps . . .

from Donald Levin’s Blog   This week’s guest: Doris Rubenstein (Ecuador 1971-73) I’m pleased to host award-winning author Doris Rubenstein. Doris is a native of Detroit and a graduate of the University of Michigan. After two years in Peace Corps/Ecuador, she started a long career with non-profit organizations and in the field of philanthropy. She is the author of five books besides her newest one. You’re Always Welcome at the Temple of Aaron won the 2009 USCJ Schechter Award, and The Journey of a Dollar was a Silver Franklin Award winner from the IBPA. Doris has lived in Minnesota since 1984 and received her M.A. from Augsburg University there in 1993; her thesis won a Kenneth Clark Award for Research in Leadership from the Center for Creative Leadership (N.C.).  She has been a regular contributor to numerous local and national publications on the subjects of Philanthropy and the Arts. This week Doris will talk . . .

  The Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders are proud to announce their squad for the 2021 season. This year’s team features 11 new members, as well as 21 returning veterans. Hundreds of candidates auditioned, spanning across 24 states in addition to Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, and Canada. Over the course of three months and several elimination rounds, 48 contestants made it to the final audition, where they showcased their talent and individuality with a creative solo performance. The 11 new members feature a published author and historian, press secretary for the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and Operation Smile global partnerships coordinator who recently worked in Koforidua, Ghana to coordinate a cleft lip and cleft palate surgical program. “We are thrilled to announce our squad for the 2021 season,” said Barbara Zaun, Eagles Director of Entertainment Teams. “As ambassadors for the organization, the Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders embrace meaningful . . .

By David B. Levine (Ethiopia (1964-66) Ted Wells’  The Old Man in the Bag and Other True Stories of Good Intentions is a wonderful collection of reminisces from Helen and Ted Wells’ first two of their three years as Peace Corps Volunteers in Ethiopia (1968-1971). Each of the twelve chapters is preceded by a copy of a letter home from them and accompanied by extensive photographs. The letters and stories add up to an overview of what was an exciting, path-setting, exhilarating, frightening, emotionally fraught, and extraordinarily impactful two years, both atypical and unique Peace Corps experience! I knew Helen and Ted as PCV’s; in fact, I was instrumental in their receiving the assignment underlying the narrative and am actually named a time or two in the telling.  Here is that background. First, I was a PCV in Ethiopia myself, from 1964-66 (Eth IV) as a teacher in Emdeber, in . . .

  John Turnbull passed away on April 4, 2021 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  John commented frequently on Peace Corps World Wide, about his Peace Corps experiences in Ghana and Malawi as a geologist in the early days of Peace Corps. Here is one of his commentaries in response to John Coyne’s review of Kallman’s Death of Idealism in the Peace Corps “A great commentary, John ! As you know I have been accused of over-romanticing my experiences as a geologist, in Africa. My conclusion concerning Ms. Kallman’s book, is that there is no single thing we can call “The Peace Corps Experience” There are MANY, and even in Africa, where I worked, the difference in cultural interaction between Ghana in West Africa, and then Nyasaland Protectorate in British Central Africa, was radically different. Even as early as 1967, the Peace Corps itself concluded that the experince in . . .

    Unbeknownst to Sarge Shriver, who had been tasked by JFK to establish a new agency with the tentative title of “Peace Corps” in the first days of the Kennedy Administration, there were two officials in the Far Eastern division of the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) working on their “own” Peace Corps. Warren Wiggins deputy director of Far Eastern operations in ICA, still in his 30s,  with Bill Josephson, just 26, a lawyer at ICA. The paper they prepared detailing their recommendations for the new agency they called “A Towering Task,” taking the title from the phrase Kennedy had used in his State of the Union address: “The problems . . . are towering and unprecedented — and the response must be towering and unprecedented as well.” Shriver and Harris Wofford in early February 1961 set up a temporary, two-room headquarters in the Mayflower Hotel and a steady cast . . .

  In the year 2020, Americans suffered one rude blow after another to their health, livelihoods, and collective self-esteem. A ruthless pandemic, an inept and malign government response, polarizing protests, and an election marred by conspiracy theories left many citizens in despair about their country and its democratic experiment. With pitiless precision, the year exposed the nation’s underlying conditions — discredited elites, weakened institutions, blatant inequalities — and how difficult they are to remedy. In Last Best Hope, George Packer traces the shocks back to their sources. He explores the four narratives that now dominate American life: Free America, which imagines a nation of separate individuals and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Smart America, the world view of Silicon Valley and the professional elite; Real America, the white Christian nationalism of the heartland; and Just America, which sees citizens as members of identity groups that inflict or suffer . . .

  Please read the Acting Director’s Message and then the Newsletter. Acting Director’s Message “Welcome to Inside Peace Corps where we share updates and news on our work at headquarters and in the countries where our Volunteers are invited to serve. We are so fortunate to have people around the globe who are invested in the Peace Corps and our mission of world peace and friendship. The aim of this publication is to provide information on issues that our stakeholders care about most. I cannot overstate my appreciation for your ongoing support as we prepare to return Volunteers to service abroad. Thank you for stepping Inside Peace Corps to walk side-by-side with us.” Here is the Link; https://analytics.clickdimensions.com//peacecorpsgov-aflq5/pages/b056c3c9c9c7eb11813a005056af48c9.html The newsletter is wide reaching as these topics indicate: Peace Corps Response Volunteers Sworn in for Three-Month Domestic Deployment  Staff to Complete Unconscious Bias in the Workplace Training by the End of . . .

  I think that Peace Corps Worldwide will be interested to learn about our RPCV Gulf Coast Florida recent meeting with several representatives of Rotary on June 5.  We learned a lot about Rotary activities and the program of partnering with Peace Corps Volunteers and RPCVs.  Attached is a report of our exhilarating conversation. Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) Recipient Lillian Carter Award 2017 • Partnering for Peace:  Peace Corps / Rotary Partnership Did you know that the U.S. Peace Corps is an official partner of Rotary International?  Most do not, which is why the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) of Gulf Coast Florida hosted a Zoom meeting on June 5, 2021 (click to view).  Rotary and Peace Corps members were present, along with board members from Partnering for Peace, an organization that emerged to find and implement projects to strengthen the partnership. Rotarians Vana Prewitt and Kelsey Mitchell, both from Rotary District 6960 in . . .

    Loret Miller Ruppe’s Speech March 1-3, 1996   WHAT A GREAT HONOR to be here with all my fellow Directors — John Dellenback, who always warned me never to threaten to resign; Kevin O’Donnell, who has always given to Peace Corps; and Jack Hogan, who never lets anyone land a glove on Peace Corps. I am grateful to every Director. All of them helped me. First in line was Sargent Shriver, the Director of Directors — a man always with a vision. The Peace Corps is needed now more than ever. It is our nation’s greatest peace-building machine, which serves overseas and then brings it all back home. Charlie McCormick is here from Save the Children, as well as other great private volunteer organizations. And Senator Nancy Kassebaum, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer mother and a strong supporter, who just flew back from Africa, visiting eight countries in . . .

This is an excellent summary of Peace Corps today.  The RPCV community is discussing the  current status of the Peace Corps and its future. This  is a good review of  Peace Corps today by the reputable Congressional Research Service.  Here is the Introduction and the link to the complete report: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21168.pdf “The Peace Corps: Overview and Issues Updated February 25, 2021 Founded in 1961, the Peace Corps pursues a legislative mandate of promoting world peace and friendship by sending American volunteers to serve at the grassroots level in all corners of the world. In September 2019, there were 7,334 volunteers serving in 61 nations. In March 2020, all volunteers were evacuated and programs suspended as a result of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Data in this report reflect status of the Peace Corps volunteer force prior to its March 2020 evacuation. The agency has announced plans to restart programs . . .

    The Mending Fields by Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975–76)   I WAS ASSIGNED to the Island of Saint Kit in the West Indies. Once on an inter-island plane, I sat across the aisle from one of my new colleagues, an unfriendly, overserious young woman. She was twenty-four, twenty-five . . . we were all twenty-four, twenty-five. I didn’t know her much or like her. As the plane banked over the island, she pressed against the window, staring down at the landscape. I couldn’t see much of her face, just enough really to recognize an expression of pain. Below us spread an endless manicured lawn, bright green and lush of sugarcane, the island’s main source of income. Each field planted carefully to control erosion. Until that year, Saint Kit’s precious volcanic soil had been bleeding into the sea; somehow they had resolved the problem. The crop was now being . . .

FUTURE PEACE CORPS? By Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) Lately there has been a slew of articles about the Peace Corps and change. Some authors describe rising assaults on volunteers. Others discuss the lack of adequate medical compensation for returning volunteers. For decades, many have criticized the program itself: recruitment, job placement, purpose and bureaucracy. None of them analyze a simple fact: America and Americans are not perceived as they were in 1961. Sixteen years after the end of the Second World War, we were perceived as the Great Liberators. That seems to have changed. Now, we are often seen as the Evil Empire and volunteers as stormtroopers. Today there are no volunteers in the field. This might be an opportune moment to revise the Peace Corps mission. Maybe it should be a simple post-graduate exchange between nations. For example, we send them an architect and they send us an . . .

The Peace Corps site has a new item:  It is a newsletter with current information about Peace Corps.  I had posted more information about the site, which is not secure.  However, because of an abundance of caution. I have deleted the identifying information. There is a developing story that the State Department has been “hacked” by foreign powers.  Peace Corps is an independent agency within the State Department, but I think it just  prudent to wait and see. We will repost when the site is secure.