Washington – In its 45 years, the Peace Corps has sent more than 180,000 volunteers around the world to help people in developing nations and serve as goodwill ambassadors for the United States.
The earliest Peace Corps veterans are heading into retirement or ready for sabbaticals, and many are eager for another opportunity to serve the way they did as passionate young adults in the 1960s and ’70s.
“I’ve always been more comfortable being a fish out of water,” said Susan Ely, who volunteered with the Peace Corps in Costa Rica and Haiti years ago but returned to live in Washington.
Ely, now 51, was to leave today for a new overseas assignment through Peace Corps Encore. The newly established nonprofit connects Peace Corps veterans to short-term assignments that tap their expertise.
The group posted Ely, who has been a director at nonprofit organizations, to India for a three-week assignment working with the United Way of Mumbai and other charitable groups, working on projects such as rebuilding a fishing village destroyed in the 2004 tsunami.
She’ll build and maintain donor databases, coordinate volunteers and handle a host of logistical issues peculiar to the world of nonprofit groups.
The Peace Corps was established in 1961 after John F. Kennedy challenged college students to serve their country in the cause of peace.
The organization still enjoys a good reputation, but it isn’t as large as it once was.
It has grown in recent years to a current force of about 7,800, about half of what it was in its heyday in the late 1960s.
Peace Corps Encore is not affiliated with the Peace Corps itself, but its executive director, Maura Fulton, said other nonprofit groups have been eager to establish partnerships when they realize all her volunteers are Peace Corps veterans.
The Peace Corps itself recruits veterans for second tours, and it has a separate Crisis Corps that uses veterans on assignments ranging from three months to a year.
