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National Peace Corps Association > News > Advocacy > NPCA: Honor Sarge with Service
NPCA: Honor Sarge with Service
By Jonathan Pearson on Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
At the NPCA's national conference in 2002, volunteers built a playground with KaBOOM!
Serve For Sarge
“It is well to be prepared for life as it is, but it is better to be prepared to make life better than it is.”
R. Sargent Shriver
In honoring the life of Peace Corps founder Sargent Shriver, there is no better action one can take than serving others.
To honor Sarge’s endless commitment to service, the National Peace Corps Association urges all members of the Peace Corps community and other supporters to “Serve for Sarge!” Between now and March 1st (Peace Corps Day), we encourage all to take action individually or collectively in remembrance of this beloved American hero.
While many within our community participate in ongoing service projects, the list below provides some ideas on ways you can serve.
After you have served for Sarge, please follow this link to offer your condolences with members of the Shriver family and share your service contribution. We will compile all comments and send a condolence book to the Shriver family.
– > Also, post a photo of your activity with a description, on our Flickr group Serve for Sarge! We’ll create a visual record of volunteerism in action.
Possibilities for Service:
- NPCA Member Groups: Contact a National Peace Corps Association member group near you to see if they have any service plans in the coming week or ongoing projects
- Feeding America: Follow this link to make connections with community food banks in your state
- Homeless Shelters/Soup Kitchens: Follow this link to make connections with homeless shelters and soup kitchens in your state
- www.Serve.Gov Federal government site where you can search for local service opportunities
- Visit Those Who Can’t Visit You: Find a retirement center/nursing home, military hospital or other institution where individuals are in need of friendship and encouragement
- Community Clean Up: Identify an area in your community that needs a clean up. Organize a group or take on the task yourself
- Help a Neighbor in Need: Consider a neighbor who needs some support or has fallen on difficult times. Consider an act of kindness you can offer to that neighbor to demonstrate your caring and support
- Shriver Family Organizations: The work of the entire Shriver family is synonymous with service to others. While opportunities may not be available in the next week, consider ways you can lend your support to groups such as the Special Olympics and Best Buddies.
- Your Suggestions: If you have other service suggestions to offer, please include them by offering a comment.
Sarge inspired me as a young man, to care about people I had not only not met, but didnt even know anything of their existence. From this situation, the roots of the philosophy of self-help sprung up in my life. My teaching career was embued with this idea when I returned home to my own country, and has continued to this day. Thank God for individuals like Sarg for sharing of their vision and mission to better our world. – George Arlin, Albany Oregon.
Sheri (Korea I, 1966-68) and Tom (Malaysia XII, 1966-68) will travel to Malaysia from February 7 to March 4, 2011, to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity in East Malaysia for a week, and to visit schools and stay with Malaysian friends in West Malaysia for two weeks. This is a celebration, as well as a commitment to on-going service, to honor Sargent Shriver’s call to help the world be a better place. We have felt our own lives enriched by our experiences of service, both overseas and at home, and the Peace Corps has been a very big part of that. Eternal thanks to Sarge.
Apart from media coverage of political/governmental activities, following the historical election of John F. Kennedy, I knew nothing of this man before. So my surprise was doubly great to be awakened very early one morning to receive a telegram signed by Sarge. He was inviting me to accompany the first group sent to Ethiopia.
I was a 5-Year Navy veteran, with heavy action duty in the Korean conflict: Attending UCLA on the GI Bill, not having given a prior moment’s thought to Peace Corps Service. In fact, I’d just received notice of a Federal Service appointment to a Trust Territories of the Pacific CD assignment. My “Better Angel” guided my decision that morning, and I felt the same obligation to answer Sarge as I would have if JFK himself had asked.
I’ve never regretted that fateful decision, and went on to get to know Sarge well in the PC; then even better later in our service to the “War on Poverty”. He was an example of the type of leader that any man or woman would always feel proud to have served under; and thereby unforgettable!
Fifty years ago, I sent an application in for a new, slightly controversial government program. Six months later I was in Thailand as a lab tech in a provincial hospital! SOme time later I had my only personal meeting with Sarge Shriver when he visited Thailand and paid a visit to our PC hqs in Bangkok. The whole total of my personal interaction with him was a handshake lasting about five seconds and a hugh smile. But that was enough to reinspire me about the Peace Corps. Sarge and JFK inspired me (and thousands like me) to rededicate ourselves to serving our country be serving others.
“It is not what you get out of life that counts. It’s what you give when it’s given from the heart.” Sargent Shriver
That is such a great quote and certainly matched the man. My experience with Peace Corps has been the most beneficial experience of my life and may not have been possible without the original concept by Shriver. Thank you!
The students at the local school that I serve two days a week, just love the Peace Corps. I made a poster to display with this quote and a brief note about Robert Sargent Shriver. I wanted to honor the man that was instrumental in developing the Peace Corps and share with the youth.
I am proud that the NPCA has made every effort to keep us posted on the recent events concerning Sarge, you have been a special friend to us all…especially for those of us in remote areas of the world…thanks NPCA, thanks Kevin! This has been an emotional time as we remember our friend and Director, Sarge. He contributed to the changes in our life and the lives of those we became friends with overseas. He never left our side, and always stood firm on keeping Peace Corps the agency it had to become…even when USAID made attempts to place us under them to reel in the Volunteers. Because of you, I met my Colombian bride, and our son was born in Colombia…none of this would have happened had there not been a Peace Corps. We Love and respect you Sarge! Bob
Peace Corps Response Volunteer/Paraguay 2010-2011
Peace Corps Response Volunteer/Panama 2009-2010
RPCV/Colombia 1964-1966
The North Carolina Peace Corps Association, together with the Duke Alumni Association, will conclude a weekend of activities on Sunday, Feb. 27th, with a service activity, packing meals for Stop Hunger Now. This activity was already planned, but we will dedicate it to Serving for Sarge! He was a man who truly made a difference in this world, and who will continue to inspire us to make a difference.
My Peace Corps experience did totally change my life, moving me from a science lab into a school and counseling arena that proved to be my purpose in life. It expanded my world view in ways that I cannot overstate. And I hope it gave my Nigerian students just a small measure of the value it gave me.
I cannot overstate the impact that my years in Nigeria had on my life. It moved me from a direction in a science lab into a career in schools and counseling, which proved to be my life mission. It expanded my worldview tremendously, the one single thing I personally value above all. I hope it gave my students at least a small fraction of the value it gave me.
I think of Sarge finishing his short speech to the perhaps several hundred of us who gathered at the Lincoln Memorial for a truncated 40th anniversary the week after 9/11 with “Serve, serve, serve!” What an inspiration to those of us who served in Peace Corps at the beginning and his life continued and continues to inspire.
Angene Wilson (Liberia 1962-64)
The photo at the top of this page was taken on September 22, 2001, at the dedication of the playground that RPCVs and others built with Kaboom! on that day. It was at that event that Sarge made a little speech with the phrase “Serve, serve, serve!” Building the playground with Kaboom! was the service activity planned for the 40th anniversary conference in Septmber 2001. The conference had to be cancelled due to 9/11, but the playground project went on anyway. I have always been grateful that I chose to work on that project and that we, with the help of others, were able to build the playground in spite of the tragic events of 9/11.