“I've talked to several people who have wanted to join the Peace Corps since they were 5 years old,” Fornoff said. “I didn't even know what the Peace Corps was until I was a junior or senior in college. I didn't know what it was all about.” “It was a big step - an unusual step,” recalled his father, Ken Fornoff. “We kind of expected his career wouldn't be with the Farm Bureau forever, but we didn't expect it to take the turn of joining the Peace Corps.” Ken and his wife, Kathie, wrestled with their natural worries over their son's welfare. “He's our son, and he's going into a situation where he will be living in poor conditions with a lot of challenges around him,” Ken said. “As parents, we'd like to keep our children safe and close to us.” “We had a lot of kitchen-table talks about why he was going and what he wanted to accomplish,” Ken added. “We questioned his decision initially. It took us a while to understand his desire to be in the Peace Corps.” Those discussions with Matt and talks with parents of other Peace Corps volunteers eventually brought Ken and Kathie Fornoff around. “They all reassured us that it was an outstanding experience - a challenging experience, but a wonderful opportunity,” Ken said.
Matt Fornoff to serve as Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi
Man to head from Manito to Malawi
By Art Drake
Published: Thursday, February 22, 2007 3:09 PM CST
MANITO - Matt Fornoff doesn't see his impending Peace Corps tour as a chance to save the world.
“It's a chance to show myself that a normal, average Joe can do something that's pretty neat and help a few people,” he explained, “and if not, at least have some good experiences.”
On Feb. 25, he'll say good-bye to his parents' farm two miles north of Manito. He'll hop on a plane in Springfield, stopping at Washington, D.C., for shots and orientation. On Feb. 27, he'll take the 15-hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, before heading to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi.
There he has two months of training in store before undertaking his mission in that southern African country.
If Fornoff's mission were, in fact, to save the world, subtropical Malawi would be a daunting place to start. The country is slightly smaller than Pennsylvania, and it's one of the world's least developed countries. Its 13 million people suffer a high incidence of AIDS, high infant mortality rates and low life expectancy.
During his stay, he will be a community and forestry Peace Corps volunteer - a title that is, Fornoff admits, vague.
“That could be anything outdoors,” he said. “It will depend on the needs of the community and what the people there want me to do.”
Fornoff's application to the Peace Corps more than a year ago launched a career change that took him and his family by surprise. As a student at Midwest Central High School, the Peace Corps was not on his radar screen. He enjoyed the FFA, baseball, hunting and fishing. As an agricultural communications student at the University of Illinois, his attention was on his studies, participation in the Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow and the Fighting Illini Bass Fishing Club.
After graduating from college in 2003, he and a friend backpacked around Europe. Then he worked for a short time at Gander Mountain and in the Peoria Journal Star sports department. In November 2004, he became a manager for the Washington and Perry County Farm Bureau.
The Farm Bureau work was rewarding and put his agricultural communication background to good use with lots of meetings and programs. But he became restless with life in a small town that wasn't really his home.
“I was 25 years old and single and living in a little bitty town in southern Illinois,” he recalled. “I was ready for a change.”
Fornoff remembered a friend who had joined the Peace Corps, and he put in his application, too. It took most of a year to get his medical and dental clearances and to leap through the various hoops that lead to Peace Corps enlistment.
“I've talked to several people who have wanted to join the Peace Corps since they were 5 years old,” Fornoff said. “I didn't even know what the Peace Corps was until I was a junior or senior in college. I didn't know what it was all about.”
“It was a big step - an unusual step,” recalled his father, Ken Fornoff. “We kind of expected his career wouldn't be with the Farm Bureau forever, but we didn't expect it to take the turn of joining the Peace Corps.”
Ken and his wife, Kathie, wrestled with their natural worries over their son's welfare.
“He's our son, and he's going into a situation where he will be living in poor conditions with a lot of challenges around him,” Ken said. “As parents, we'd like to keep our children safe and close to us.”
“We had a lot of kitchen-table talks about why he was going and what he wanted to accomplish,” Ken added. “We questioned his decision initially. It took us a while to understand his desire to be in the Peace Corps.”
Those discussions with Matt and talks with parents of other Peace Corps volunteers eventually brought Ken and Kathie Fornoff around. “They all reassured us that it was an outstanding experience - a challenging experience, but a wonderful opportunity,” Ken said.
The prospect of spending 27 months in Africa doesn't bother Matt Fornoff.
“I'm not looking forward to the inconvenience of the language,” he said. He'll do his best to pick up the native Chichewa tongue, but he knows it will be a far cry from his high school Spanish lessons.
“From what I've heard and read, the hardest part is not the language and the food,” he added. “You'll learn the language eventually. Sure, the food will be different, but you're not going to starve to death.”
Instead issues of Malawi's poverty and culture may be his biggest challenge, he believes. As a white American - rich by Malawi's standards - he'll be a novelty.
“People are going to want to see what the white American has to say,” Fornoff expects.
“Two years seems like a long time,” he acknowledged. “But I graduated from college 3 and a half years ago, and that seems like nothing.”
“I have to remind people that I'm not dying. I'm just going away for a while,” he said. “I'll be just on the other side of the world. It's just a plane ride away.”
For their part, Ken and Kathie Fornoff intend to take that plane ride to southern Africa someday to visit their son and see what he's doing. They are encouraged by a message from another Peace Corps parent - one which counts them blessed to have children with a heart for service.
“We support him in his decision,” Ken Fornoff said. “We look forward to hearing all the stories he'll have to tell.”
