RPCV Ann Pelligrini talks about her service in Lithuania



RPCV Ann Pelligrini talks about her service in Lithuania

Former resident to speak on Peace Corps

By Jeanne M. Rideout / jrideout@cnc.com
Wednesday, February 26, 2003

"Five days after the Peace Corps was born, I was born," said volunteer Ann Pelligrini, who was assigned to go to the former Soviet Union.

As the Peace Corps moves forward to celebrate its 42nd anniversary, Pelligrini will speak about her experience as a Peace Corps volunteer on Saturday, March 1, from 2:30-4:30 p.m. at the Hingham Public Library. Pelligrini will talk about living and working in Lithuania, a transitioning country, as a business consultant and teacher from 199 to 2001. She will also discuss what it means to be a Peace Corps volunteer in the 21st century.

Pelligrini hopes to dispel many of the commonly held ideas about the Peace Corps that do not reflect what the organization is after nearly half-a-century of service.

"This is not your grandparents' Peace Corp," Pelligrini said.

More than 165,000 Americans have answered the call since former President John F. Kennedy created the organization in 1961.

Pelligrini, who grew up on Webb Street in North Weymouth, found an unusual path to the Corps. After graduation from Boston College, Pelligrini worked in the business world for 15 years. She longed to be able to work abroad and experience another culture "not as a tourist." One afternoon, talking to a co-worker, lamenting that the software company where they were employed did not offer her the chance for travel, Pelligrini said that maybe she should just join the Peace Corps.

"I said it rather flipply," Pelligrini said. Yet, as fate would have it, her co-worker said his mother had been in the Peace Corps. He suggested that she and Pelligrini should talk. This ultimately led to Pelligrini beginning the "excruciating" application to be a Peace Corps volunteer and finally having the chance to live her dream.

"It's not a vacation. There is a lot of frustration and hardship. But I made some wonderful friends and I made a lasting contribution," Pelligrini said.

When this story was posted in December 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:

Our debt to Bill Moyers Former Peace Corps Deputy Director Bill Moyers leaves PBS next week to begin writing his memoir of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Read what Moyers says about journalism under fire, the value of a free press, and the yearning for democracy. "We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country," he warns, "or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia."

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December 10, 2004: This Week's Top Stories Dodd says Rumsfeld's answer was unacceptable 9 Dec RPCV Blake Willeford runs classic movie theatre 9 Dec RPCV says education is key to curbing AIDS 9 Dec RPCV Dannielle Tegeder opens exhibition 9 Dec Shalala 1st Woman In Touchdown Club 9 Dec "Today we have a new country" says Toledo 9 Dec DDN wins Investigative Reporting Award 8 Dec Celeste on Panel to study Colorado finances 8 Dec RPCV leads Rotary Club medical team to Togo 6 Dec Vasquez to speak at Hawaii, Wisconsin commencements 6 Dec Tom Murphy warns Pittsburgh on budget abyss 2 Dec Venezuela RPCV Martha Egan runs Pachamama imports 30 Nov more top stories...

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