He hitchhiked on a truck and spent his first four or five months with few transportation options, walking through the jungle from village to village unable to persuade a single farmer to change his methods of beekeeping. Once Mr. Juring got one farmer to consolidate his hives -- and those hives began to produce substantially more honey -- his services were quickly in demand. A farmer there could quadruple his annual income by selling honey. Eventually, Mr. Juring would ride a motorcycle that he assembled from parts from several nonworking vehicles, a beehive strapped to his back.
In 1978, after completing his in-country training in Belize, Beekeeper Tom Juring said that he was given a posting location and a date to report and basically had to find his own way there
Peace Corps marks 50 years of changing lives
Volunteers recall their work made more of a difference in them that it did to those they served
Monday, February 28, 2011
By Anya Sostek, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In the 1970s, Tom Juring, of Squirrel Hill, was hitchhiking his way through Belize to his Peace Corps posting as a beekeeper. In the 1980s, Robert East, of Washington, Pa., was setting up renewable energy projects in Kenya, where he would meet his future wife. In the 1990s, Linda Herndon, of Peters, was raising money to build a health clinic in the Dominican Republic that is still operational today.
For half a century, the Peace Corps has employed, educated and enriched the lives of thousands of participants. The organization celebrates its 50th anniversary Tuesday, marking the day that President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order creating the Peace Corps.
The University of Pittsburgh is holding a free public panel discussion Tuesday at 7 p.m., as former Peace Corps volunteers will gather at the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium to share tales of their experiences.
In the last 50 years, more than 200,000 Americans have volunteered with the Peace Corps in 139 different countries. For many former Peace Corps volunteers, their experiences not only helped others but shaped their own lives.
Ms. Herndon, 40, graduated from Duquesne as a biology and chemistry major, not quite sure what she wanted to do with her life. Her experience as a health educator in the Dominican Republic in the early 1990s -- living in a shack in a remote beach village -- convinced her to pursue a master's in teaching when she returned to the U.S.
She went on to teach both Spanish and science at Fox Chapel Area High School, traveling regularly back to the Dominican Republic to visit the medical clinic -- though both her teaching career and international trips are now on hiatus as she raises five children.
"It was way more than I could have ever expected," she said. "It's been huge part of my life."
Though the basic concept of the Peace Corps program hasn't changed much in the last 50 years, the program has undergone some adjustments.
Requirements used to be somewhat less stringent -- Mr. Juring joined the Peace Corps in 1978 without having a college degree -- and at various points in its history the organization has focused more or less on its volunteers having specific skills, versus being general goodwill ambassadors.
In recent years, the Peace Corps has become increasingly competitive, due to both a poor national economy and an interest in volunteerism among recent college graduates.
The program is also more organized than it once was.
In 1978, after completing his in-country training in Belize, Mr. Juring said that he was given a posting location and a date to report and basically had to find his own way there. He hitchhiked on a truck and spent his first four or five months with few transportation options, walking through the jungle from village to village unable to persuade a single farmer to change his methods of beekeeping.
Once Mr. Juring got one farmer to consolidate his hives -- and those hives began to produce substantially more honey -- his services were quickly in demand. A farmer there could quadruple his annual income by selling honey.
Eventually, Mr. Juring would ride a motorcycle that he assembled from parts from several nonworking vehicles, a beehive strapped to his back.
Aside from his marriage and the birth of his children, the Peace Corps was "the best thing I ever, ever, ever did," said Mr. Juring, 58, who moved to Pittsburgh when his wife, Mary Crossley, was named dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees when he finished his Peace Corps service and then started a nonprofit organization that worked with farmers in Belize. He now manages student programs at Pitt's Center for Global Health and coordinates the Peace Corps Master's International Program at the Graduate School of Public Health.
For Mr. Juring, the 50th anniversary is a significant one for the Peace Corps. "It's become a part of American culture," he said.
Many other returned volunteers in the Pittsburgh area have also found themselves doing work directly related to their Peace Corps service. Jonnet Maurer, who volunteered in Togo from 2001 to 2003, is now the Peace Corps recruiter for the Pittsburgh area. Applicants these days have the best chance of being accepted into the Peace Corps if they have hands-on experience in the field they're trying to work in -- practical experience teaching English as a foreign language, for example, or working at a nonprofit organization.
Paul Tellers, director of planning for WTW Architects, was able to use his Peace Corps service to advance his chosen career. Mr. Tellers had graduated from the University of Detroit with an architecture degree in 1973 but wasn't yet licensed as an architect in the U.S.
When he -- along with his wife -- joined the Peace Corps in 1974, he was posted in Malawi as the country built a new capital city of Lilongwe after shedding its colonial capital. Mr. Tellers designed a four-story government and retail building, seeing his project through to completion in his two years.
"The Peace Corps can interrupt or delay some people's careers," he said. "In a way, mine was a little bit accelerated." He returned to the U.S. with much more confidence as an architect than he'd had when he left.
For Mr. East, of Washington, Pa., his life after the Peace Corps is hard to imagine without his life in the Peace Corps. Now director of environmental students at Washington & Jefferson College, Mr. East not only met his future Ph.D. adviser during his three years in Kenya, but he also met his wife.
"It opened doors that never would have opened for me and I continue every day to benefit from it," he said. "I got more from Africa than I gave."
Mr. East, 49, who worked with renewable energy and agri-forestry during his Peace Corps service, took groups of his own college students to Kenya until several years ago. He regularly goes back with his wife and teenage sons, in part to visit his wife's family.
Mr. East still gets teased by his wife about some of his Peace Corps experiences, like the time when he wanted to order a pound of liver from the local butcher but didn't know the word for liver. He often practiced his language skills on children and asked one how to say liver. When the child deviously told him a word for a male anatomical part instead, and he tried to order a pound of said part, the butcher and those surrounding him burst out in hysterical laughter.
For all the laughs, the 50th anniversary represents something serious, he said.
"It makes me reflect on the contribution that Kennedy made, that Sargent Shriver made," he said, referring to the founding director of the Peace Corps, who died last month. "I feel like I'm a part of something much bigger than myself."
