Peace Corps, early retirees make a good match
Salem Statesman-Journal, October 11th, 2007
A top Peace Corps official will visit the Mid-Valley next week in hopes
of recruiting more 50-plus-year-olds to volunteer overseas. She’s
coming to the right place.
Marion and Polk counties have
thousands of retirees with solid skills in public service and many good
years to give back to others. That’s just what the Peace Corps needs,
says Jody Olsen, the deputy director who will be speaking in Salem on
Tuesday.
A few mature volunteers always have served alongside
the many 20somethings in Peace Corps. Among the best-known was
President Jimmy Carter’s mother, Lillian, who joined at the age of 68
in the 1960s. Now the Peace Corps wants to double its older volunteers
from 5 percent to 10 percent of the nearly 8,000 men and women
currently serving.
This makes sense for the 46-year-old
organization and for local residents, especially the many Mid-Valley
residents who’ve taken early retirement through PERS or other programs.
A two-year stint in the Peace Corps would be an antidote to the
job-weariness that led many to pack it in.
Teaching,
agriculture, the environment, information technology and health are
some of the most-requested job skills in the 139 countries where Peace
Corps volunteers serve. Those are just the kind of skills that local
school, state, city and county retirees possess.
Imagine taking
a career’s worth of know-how and problem-solving to a new place where
it’s desperately needed. In many cultures, age is more valued than in
America.
Bob Arias of Dallas, a former Peace Corps volunteer in
Colombia and country director in Argentina and Uruguay, says, “You
spend a couple of years giving back; you see yourself in a different
environment. I have seen 80-year-old volunteers come back looking like
they’re 60.”
Read more of this article.Working in Retirement: Consider the advantages to paid or volunteer work during your retirement at NewRetirement.com