The Peace Corps has issued a call to service to U.S. citizens who are adventurous, brave, hardworking … and retired



When John F. Kennedy launched the Peace Corps campaign in the 1960s, he issued a challenge for recent college graduates to serve two years assisting developing nations. Members of that generation, many of them baby boomers just reaching adulthood, are now in their 60s. But four decades later, some are starting to answer that call to service, and the Peace Corps has focused on this growing demographic.

The Peace Corps has issued a call to service to U.S. citizens who are adventurous, brave, hardworking … and retired

Never too old to help out the Peace Corps

Those 50 and over now make up 5 percent of those serving. Just ask these Kansas Citians.

By MEGAN ROLLAND
The Kansas City Star

The Peace Corps has issued a call to service to U.S. citizens who are adventurous, brave, hardworking … and retired.

When John F. Kennedy launched the Peace Corps campaign in the 1960s, he issued a challenge for recent college graduates to serve two years assisting developing nations.

Members of that generation, many of them baby boomers just reaching adulthood, are now in their 60s. But four decades later, some are starting to answer that call to service, and the Peace Corps has focused on this growing demographic.

Ray Lehr of Kansas City was 64 when he fulfilled the dying wishes of a 3-year-old boy with AIDS in South Africa. It was a simple task — fixing the boy’s watch — but it is something Lehr will never forget.

Now 71, Lehr served three times after retirement for a total of eight years. He is scheduled to speak next week at a recruitment meeting geared toward older volunteers.

“I think a lot of retired Americans really need something to do,” Lehr said. “They are very experienced and wealthy and can accomplish goals in their life.”

Lehr’s knowledge of finances, gained after 30 years of entrepreneurship, helped Catholic nuns receive funding for an AIDS-prevention program. He also consolidated their bank accounts. “They had more money than they ever knew,” he said.

Nova and Dennis Maack, 65 and 64 respectively, returned from two years in Moldova with a new appreciation for the comforts in America and an intense understanding of other cultures.

They came to appreciate the nearly waste-free existence that poverty necessitates.

Their electricity and water were shut off at night and turned back on in the morning. “We were very fortunate; we had running water,” Dennis Maack said.

Volunteers 50 and older account for 5 percent of the 7,749 Americans currently serving, according to Peace Corps statistics from 2006. Of those 382 older volunteers, 209 are in their 50s, 146 in their 60s and 26 in their 70s. The oldest volunteer is an 80-year-old woman serving in Thailand.

In 1966, five years after the program was initiated, only 1 percent of 15,556 volunteers were 50 or older. That year represented the high-water mark for enrollment in the program.

“The Peace Corps really has always had older volunteers, but it is increasing,” said Christine Torres, a Peace Corps public affairs specialist in Chicago.

Older volunteers, she said, sometimes have an advantage over the 20-somethings with fewer life experiences.

“An older person is looked upon with a lot of respect and highly regarded,” she said. “Often, the people don’t want them to leave.”

Lehr said the most rewarding part of his service, whether in Tanzania, Jamaica or South Africa, was feeling needed. After supplying Jamaican schools with over 10,000 books, he received 14 thank-you letters from teachers, something he still beams about today.

In a way, Lehr had two retirements, one at age 55, from a computer retail company he started, and the second at age 71, from years of volunteer service with the Peace Corps, the World Bank and the United Nations. His decision to join the corps came on a whim after reading about it on an airplane.

For the Maacks, what started as general interest turned into a feeling of obligation.

“We were just going through life saying we’d really like to do something interesting,” Nova Maack said. “We had no responsibilities, and we said, ‘We don’t have a reason not to.’ ”

So the Maacks found themselves taking language classes in Moldova.

They replaced their life in Kansas City with a one-bedroom apartment in Balti, a city in the former Soviet satellite. They slept on a pull-out sofa in their host’s living room.

“I say my biggest accomplishment was living in one room with my husband for two years,” Nova Maack joked.

Nova Maack, who is now president of Kansas City’s Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, said the biggest difference between themselves and the younger volunteers was in dedication to the city. While other volunteers traveled to larger cities on the weekends to party, the Maacks stayed at their site to gain knowledge of the culture.

Unlike volunteers who served with him, most of whom were at least 20 years younger, Lehr didn’t take a camera on a single one of his volunteer trips.

“I didn’t come here to take pictures,” he would tell people. “I came here to do things.”

Recruitment meeting
Ray Lehr, a former Peace Corps volunteer, will appear next week at a recruitment meeting for older volunteers. The event is at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Linda Hall Library, 5109 Cherry St., Kansas City.

Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: July, 2007; Older Volunteers; Baby Boomers; Recruitment

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