Elizabethtown resident to serve in Dominican Republic
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Elizabethtown resident to serve in Peace Corps
BY JACK McDUFFIE Staff Writer
Elizabethtown resident Catherine Kinlaw McCulloch has been accepted to serve as a member of the Peace Corps.
She has been assigned to work in the Dominican Republic.
McCulloch, a 1997 graduate of East Bladen High School, left Saturday for Miami, where she will undergo a brief orientation before flying on to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. In Santo Domingo, she will undergo a three-month intense training program designed to prepare her to serve in her eventual capacity.
McCulloch will be assigned as a community agriculture extension leader, where she will assist women and youth in the rural communities in growing vegetable gardens and small animals to supplement their diet with more nutritional foods.
McCulloch, who graduated in May from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a double major in history and art history, says she first became interested in joining the Peace Corps "about her sophomore year in college."
"I wanted to travel, to learn about other cultures, and to gain perspective, and I believe that serving in the Peace Corps will be a great way to serve while achieving these objectives," she said.
McCulloch, who said her plan for the future includes attending law school when she returns from service with the Peace Corps, pointed out that experience in the Corps could also help her in attaining that objective.
"Another reason I decided to volunteer was because I believe the experience could be beneficial not only in being accepted to law school, but also in preparing me for the profession after I graduate," she stated. "For one thing, it means I will be bilingual when I return.
"I believe that it would also show my adaptability, dedication, resourcefulness and willingness to serve others," she added.
McCulloch said she'd been told that the group with which she would serve would be diversified, and would consist of members from various areas of the country.
"I will likely be the only North Carolinian in the group," she explained. "The philosophy of the Peace Corps, I've been told, is that by assigning people from different parts of the country, it gives the people in the nation where we are serving a better understanding of the people from the various regions of the United States."
Though McCulloch's primary assignment while in the Dominican Republic will be as a community agriculture extension leader, she will have secondary duties such as teaching English, teaching hurricane preparedness, and helping locals improve their housing and water supply.
"The Peace Corps has been in the Dominican Republic since 1962-through hurricanes and a civil war-and so the country has a good relationship with Corps," she said.
The Peace Corps was born after the late President John F. Kennedy, while visiting the campus of the University of Michigan in October 1960, proposed the concept of a bold new experiment in public service.
The concept would give Americans the opportunity to serve their country and the cause of peace by living and working in the developing countries around the world. The Corps, which would be funded by the United States government, was officially established on March 1, 1961.
In performing the Peace Corps mission, volunteers seek to implement developmental programs at a grassroots level that are aimed at raising the standard of living in the communities in which they are serving.
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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; PCVs in the field; COS - Dominican Republic
