Recognizing Service: Peace Corps & AmeriCorps Weeks

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 20 January 1961

When President Kennedy spoke those words, the Peace Corps was still being workshopped by a group of motivated students and the seeds of AmeriCorps were stuck back in the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps.

Service for your country was considered in the terms of the military. Even today, when people use the phrase, “served their country,” it’s pretty much exclusively employed in reference to members of the military. Attend any major league sporting event and you’ll likely hear a “salute to our service men and women.”

But the reality of service today is much more multi-faceted that simply military service, and today is right in the middle of the time of year that is meant to recognize that service, as it is the end of Peace Corps Week and the beginning of AmeriCorps Week.

I’m willing to bet that the average American has a vague understanding of the Peace Corps and minimal awareness of the existence of AmeriCorps, and so I’d like to touch on what exactly each of these agencies is and recognize the work their service members do.

AmeriCorps

Early History

AmeriCorps traces its roots back to the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) of President Roosevelt’s New Deal. The CCC began as a program to provide jobs for single men between the ages of 18 and 23, later expanded to 17 to 28.

The jobs were unskilled, manual labor jobs relating to the conservation and development of natural resources on government owned lands, and the most well-known results of that work are trails and lodges of the majority of our National Parks. But, the CCC was never intended to be permanent, and in the years that it ran, 1933-1942, it provided around 3 million men with shelter, clothing, food and wages of $30 a month.

Volunteers in Service to America

In 1963, President Kennedy saw the enthusiasm and benefits of the Peace Corps abroad, which was established two years prior, and realized that there was a need for services in both urban and rural poverty areas in the United States.

Although he was assassinated before such program could be created, his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson founded the Volunteers In Service To America (VISTA) as a part of his War on Poverty. VISTA volunteers serve for a year, are provided with a stipend that is about equivalent to the poverty line in the area that they work and a variety of other benefits.

Unlike the CCC, VISTA focuses primarily on indirect service, which is to say that they work with non-profits to help mobilize community members to take ownership of projects that are beneficial to the community. Throughout the history of VISTA, those projects have included, Head Start preschools, establishing credit unions and starting agricultural co-ops.

The focus of VISTA in the 1970s was on recruiting professionals to design and build low-income housing, health care facilities and health care reforms, while in the 1980s the focus again shifted to literacy, substance abuse prevention and treatment, civic participation and community involvement.

A Thousand Points of Light

In his inaugural address in 1989, President George H.W. Bush referred to number and variety of community organizations as “a thousand points of light.” This recognition of the importance of community service continued during his presidency when he established the Commission on National Community Service in 1990, which later became the Corporation for National Community Service under President Bill Clinton, which officially created the AmeriCorps agency.

Today, AmeriCorps is an umbrella, under which there are serval different programs. AmeriCorps State and National is a partnership between state governments and the federal government that place volunteers with non-profits that each state vets and approves; AmeriCorps National Civilian Conservation Corps (NCCC), a modern day incarnation of the CCC, is open to people aged 18-24 and is a residential program in a regional hub that gets sent to respond to national crises; VISTA was brought under the umbrella of AmeriCorps; Teach for America is an AmeriCorps program, as is City Year.

Since 1994, there have been more than 900,000 AmeriCorps volunteers who have contributed more than 1.2 billion hours of service, which very much embodies the agency’s slogan, “Getting Things Done.” To become an AmeriCorps volunteer, search for a program or location that interests you, and apply.

Peace Corps

The Genesis of the Peace Corps

As stated earlier, the idea of Peace Corps was sparked by then presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. One late night, he arrived at the University of Michigan with only the intention of staying the night before heading across the state to campaign. When he arrived around 2 a.m., he saw the enormous crowd of students (who, mind you, at the time were not able to vote because the voting age was 21) and decided to say a few words, which included these remarks:

How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past.

Inspired by that, a group of students worked with that spark of an idea and drafted a plan for an international service program, which is detailed in the documentary “A Passing of the Torch”

The Founding of the Peace Corps

In the short time between the middle of October 1960 and March 1961, the students with some help from some of Kennedy’s advisors, were able to complete the proposal for the Peace Corps and on March 1, 1960, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10934 which officially established the Peace Corps. In August of that year, the first group of volunteers left for Ghana. Over time, more countries of service were added as more countries requested volunteers, with a total of 140 countries having hosted over 220,000 volunteers. Today, there are nearly 7,000 volunteers serving in 63 countries.

Serving in the Peace Corps

Peace Corps has a total of three different programs: Peace Corps, which is a 2 year and 3 month commitment; Peace Corps Response, which is a 3-12 month service that is open to skilled professionals and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs); and Global Health Service Partnership, which is open to health care professionals for a year of service in a small subset of countries.

There are also options to complete your Master’s Degree in conjunction with a term of service, depending on your education institution. To learn more about the various Peace Corps program and to apply, check out the Web site.

On a personal note, I have found my participation in these forms of service to my country to have been extremely eye-opening, growing and rewarding. If you are considering service, and are looking for some insight, please do not hesitate to get in touch.