The Peace Corps is a group that goes to countries that need help and helps them.  They teach, nurse, and do many other things to help over 70 countries.

The Peace Corps started 42 years ago. It was one of John F. Kennedy’s campaign ideas. It is one of the reasons that John F. Kennedy won the presidential election. Everyone loved the idea of the Peace Corps. JFK only beat Richard Nixon by 119,450 votes!

When JFK was assassinated, the volunteers of the Peace Corps considered the Peace Corps a memorial to him. Everyone in the world mourned for him, from Ghana, Africa to Brazil, South America. That is probably when the Peace Corps started working extra hard. They wanted to make JFK, wherever he was, happy.

During The Peace Corps first 25 years, in Africa alone 25,000 volunteers helped at least 5,000,000 students. That’s a lot of people! As of 1990, the Peace Corps had 6,000 active volunteers working in 70 countries around the world.           

 People usually sign up to work for the Peace Corps for 2 years at a time. One time a teacher in the Peace Corps announced to her class, by whom she was greatly loved, that she was leaving. One little girl shouted out, “Madame, you can’t do that…, we love you so much.” That is how close people in the Peace Corps can get to the natives of the country they are working in.

Citations
Books and Media

Kent, Zachary Cornerstones of Freedom; The Story of the Peace Corps, Chicago: Children's Press 1990.

Images

Images of teacher and crying  from "Clip Art Gallery"  Images free for non-profit and personal use. (October-February, 2003-2004).

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