60 Fun Facts About Peace Corps

Which US president established the Peace Corps by executive order in March 1961?

Congress authorised it the following September with the Peace Corps Act.

Who was the Peace Corps' first director?

He was Kennedy's brother-in-law, married to Eunice Kennedy, and lobbied Congress energetically for approval.

How long are Peace Corps volunteers expected to serve in their host country after training?

They complete technical training first, and may request an extension afterwards.

How many months of training precede a volunteer's swearing-in?

Training happens in-country with host-country national trainers in language and job skills.

On the steps of which building did Kennedy first float the idea in a late-night campaign speech on 14 October 1960?

A brass marker commemorates the spot where he stood.

Which union leader proposed in 1950 that young Americans be sent abroad with slide rule, textbook and medical kit?

He got Kennedy to commit to the idea at Hyannisport in August 1960.

Which senator introduced the first Peace Corps bill in 1957, to little enthusiasm?

He later recalled that many senators, even liberal ones, thought it a silly and unworkable idea.

Which Wisconsin congressman proposed a Point Four Youth Corps in 1959?

His measure won $10,000 for a feasibility study by Colorado State University researchers.

What did Richard Nixon predict the Peace Corps would become?

Doubters also questioned whether recent graduates had the skills and maturity for the job.

What number was the executive order that created the Peace Corps on 1 March 1961?

Executive Order 12137 by Jimmy Carter later made the agency fully autonomous.

Which organisation did Kennedy acknowledge in 1962 as the progenitor of the Peace Corps?

It had been founded by the Rev. James H. Robinson.

Which two countries received the first group of volunteers in August 1961?

Tanganyika is now part of Tanzania; Ghana had asked for geologists among its first volunteers.

Which entertainer recorded radio and television announcements hailing the new programme?

Recruiting began in July 1962.

A 1961 postcard from a volunteer describing squalor and primitive living conditions caused a diplomatic row in which country?

Margery Jane Michelmore's card never left the country, but students at Ibadan demanded the volunteers' deportation.

How many volunteers served in the Peace Corps' first year?

Volunteers were serving in 16 countries that first year.

In which year did the number of volunteers peak at 15,556?

Budget cuts in 1989 later brought the total down to about 5,100.

As of 2015, roughly how many Americans had served in the Peace Corps?

By its 50th anniversary in 2011 there were more than 8,500 volunteers in 77 countries.

Which famous line from Kennedy's inaugural address is linked to the Peace Corps promise?

He had already sketched the programme with academics Max Millikan and Chester Bowles.

What did the Peace Corps deliberately avoid to prevent any appearance of favouring the Catholic Church?

Kennedy also insisted the Corps remain free of CIA influence.

Roughly what share of the first 7,000 volunteers were women?

Shriver practised affirmative action, but racial minorities never reached five percent.

Where was the early Peace Corps training camp, attended for three weeks after nine weeks at a US university?

The university phase focused on conversational language, world affairs and job skills.

Which director argued unsuccessfully in 1967 against drafting volunteers for Vietnam?

Joining had originally secured a draft deferment, but as the war went on some volunteers were forced home early.

Volunteer Bruce Murray was dismissed in 1967 for a letter protesting the Vietnam War while serving in which country?

He sued in 1969 and won, after which the Corps quietly tolerated more protest.

In 1971 President Nixon placed the Peace Corps under which umbrella agency?

Carter restored its autonomy by executive order in 1979, and 1981 legislation made it an independent agency.

Which president's mother served as a Peace Corps nurse in India, having applied at 68?

Lillian Carter was the oldest applicant at the time; her son called it one of the most glorious experiences of her life.

Who was the oldest volunteer when she served in Armenia in 2008 at 75?

She was from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and there is no maximum age limit for joining.

Which Reagan-appointed director, in office from 1981, brought business programmes and the first significant number of Republican volunteers?

She was later named US ambassador to Norway in 1989.

Which director created the Crisis Corps in 1996, later renamed Peace Corps Response?

It was modelled on the Emergency Response Network formed after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Peace Corps Response deploys former volunteers on assignments of typically what length?

Applicants must have completed at least one year of regular service including training.

What did President George W. Bush pledge to do to the Peace Corps after the 11 September 2001 attacks?

Congress raised the 2004 budget to $325 million, still $30 million short of his request.

What historic first happened on 15 March 2020?

The COVID-19 evacuation left volunteers ineligible for unemployment or health benefits.

Which country's programme did the Peace Corps end in June 2020?

Senator Rick Scott had criticised the China operation for not doing enough to promote capitalism.

Which of these is one of the Peace Corps' six project sectors?

The others are Agriculture, Environment, Community Economic Development, Health and Education.

Anyone who has ever worked for which agency is permanently ineligible to volunteer?

Former volunteers in turn may not apply to that agency for five years after service.

For how long after service are former volunteers barred from military intelligence duties?

They are forever barred from intelligence postings to any country in which they volunteered.

Most Peace Corps staff appointments are limited to how many years?

The rule is meant to keep staff fresh and innovative; volunteer service does not count toward it.

Which travel writer joined the Peace Corps in 1963 to teach in Malawi and was thrown out in 1965?

He was expelled after being unwittingly caught up in a plot against President Hastings Banda.

Which Netflix co-founder taught high-school maths in Swaziland with the Peace Corps from 1983 to 1985?

He had left Marine Corps officer training to join, out of a combination of service and adventure.

Which home-improvement TV host served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama in the late 1960s?

He joined after graduating in 1969.

Which political talk-show host served in Swaziland from 1968 to 1970 as a trade development adviser?

He later hosted Hardball on MSNBC.

Which future Connecticut senator served in the small town of Moncion in the Dominican Republic from 1966 to 1968?

He credited his Catholic background with his decision to join.

Who in 1978 became the first former Peace Corps volunteer elected to the US Senate?

He had served in Ethiopia from 1962 to 1964 and as country director in the West Indies.

Which Peace Corps director from 1993 to 1995 went on to run UNICEF?

She had herself been a volunteer in Guatemala from 1963 to 1965.

Which anti-poverty programme was created by Lyndon Johnson's 1964 Economic Opportunity Act as the domestic version of the Peace Corps?

Under Nixon it too was administered by the same umbrella agency as the Peace Corps.

Which musician recorded the 1968 song Who Needs the Peace Corps? on the album We're Only in It for the Money?

The Peace Corps also turns up as a plot device in Airplane! and Shallow Hal.

In which 1987 film does Baby Houseman tell the audience she plans to join the Peace Corps?

The line sets the scene for the summer of 1963.

Shriver went on from the Peace Corps to run which War on Poverty agency for Lyndon Johnson?

He directed it from October 1964 to March 1968.

Which former White House press secretary served as Peace Corps deputy director?

The deputy director is the only other Senate-confirmed post at the agency.

Which nurse's murder in Tonga in 1976, and the handling of the case against fellow volunteer Dennis Priven, drew heavy criticism?

Priven was found not guilty by reason of insanity but was never admitted to an institution.

How many languages does the Peace Corps provide teaching resources for?

Resources include text, recordings, lesson plans and teaching notes.

The 1963 executive order 11103 gave former volunteers what benefit?

Kennedy signed it as one of three orders shaping the young agency.

How many countries had Peace Corps volunteers in its first year, 1961?

By 1966 it peaked at 15,556 volunteers in 52 countries; as of 2015 it had served 142 countries in all.

After 1989 budget cuts, volunteer numbers fell to roughly how many?

Funding later recovered, and by the 50th anniversary in 2011 more than 8,500 volunteers served in 77 countries.

Which president made the Peace Corps fully autonomous by executive order in 1979?

Legislation in 1981 then secured its status as an independent federal agency.

The Peace Corps' malaria initiative, launched in 2011, grew out of work in which country?

It grew to involve volunteers in 24 African countries.

Which First Lady's Let Girls Learn initiative did the Peace Corps join with USAID in 2015?

The agency also backs equal schooling for girls in countries such as Liberia and Ethiopia.

Which union has represented the Peace Corps' domestic employees since May 1983?

AFSCME Local 3548 was certified in May 1983; its bargaining agreement signed in April 1995 stayed in force for decades.

In which country had Carol Spahn, confirmed as director in December 2022, served as a volunteer?

She later returned as country director in Malawi and chief of operations for Eastern and Southern Africa.

What share of Peace Corps volunteers were over 50 in 1961, versus about 5% in the 2010s?

Former director Gaddi Vasquez said the agency wanted to recruit more diverse volunteers and look 'more like America'.

The 2006 documentary Death of Two Sons pairs volunteer Jesse Thyne with which police-shooting victim?

Thyne had lived with Diallo's family in Guinea and died there in a car crash.