Peace Corps, Still Active After 25 Years, Salutes Its Birthday

Middle-age hippies-turned-yuppies joined statesmen and assorted dreamers at the John F. Kennedy Library Friday to start a weekend salute to the Peace Corps’ 25th anniversary.

The Peace Corps, created through executive order by President John F. Kennedy on March 1, 1961, symbolized the youthful idealism of Kennedy’s Administration, the challenge of selflessness that Kennedy issued in his inaugural speech.

Sargent Shriver, the President’s brother-in-law and the first Peace Corps director, headed a cast of former Kennedy Administration luminaries taking part in the 25th anniversary celebration.

Other participants included TV commentator Bill Moyers, the first associate Peace Corps director for public affairs; current Peace Corps Director Loret Miller Ruppe, and Warren Wiggins, deputy director during the Kennedy years.

More than 120,000 Americans have served overseas as Peace Corps volunteers, including more than 5,500 volunteers now serving in 62 nations.

The median age is now 30, compared to 23 in the 1960s. Ruppe said 60% of all volunteers now have specific skills, whereas in the 1960s the force was dominated by “generalists.”

Ruppe, who spent Friday meeting with New England college placement counselors, said recognition is a major problem for the agency in the 1980s.

“When I became director (in 1981), people were saying, ‘Oh yes, the Peace Corps. I love it. Is is still around?’ ”

The Peace Corps sends volunteers overseas for 24-month stints to train residents of developing nations in food production, health care, nutrition, renewable energy and other fields. Other programs include teacher training, mathematics and science education, and forestry.

“We hope that President Reagan will issue a challenge similar to that President Kennedy did, to challenge this generation to volunteerism,” Ruppe said. “People in the 1960s, when asked why they responded so enthusiastically, said simply that they were never asked before.”