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National Peace Corps Association > News > Polyglot > Timing is Everything – Even at the 50th
Timing is Everything – Even at the 50th
By Susan Stine on Monday, September 26th, 2011
Last Minute Shopping: (l to r) Gayle Linkletter (Cincinnati), Kimberly Sims (Seattle), Barbara Graunke (Stuart Florida), Laura Buchs (RPCVs of Wisconsin-Madison), Bob Graunke (Stuart Florida) and Millie Brother (Santa Barbara) seal the calendar deal on the streets of DC.
Pssst. Don’t tell the Washington, D.C. city government about this!
Noontime this past Saturday, just as National Peace Corps Association Advocacy Coordinator Jonathan Pearson was closing up our 1900 L Street office en route to the National Theater for Conversations: The Future of the Peace Corps, he was approached by five Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, all who served the island nation of St. Lucia in the 70′s.
“Is the NPCA office still open?”, they inquired.
Sadly, no. Our Open House had ended. But, Jonathan noted, he was just then coordinating with Laura Buchs (Micronesia 97-99) of the RPCVs of Wisconsin-Madison, who was circling the block to pick up remaining 2012 calendars and posters that the group was selling.
The timing was perfect. Not only was the group interested in purchasing calendars, Laura’s car was coming down L Street just as another car was about to pull out (for out-of-towners, a parking spot on Saturday afternoon in DC is a valuable commodity!)
Laura bounced out of her car, and was more than happy to make a final sale!
By the way, if you’re in D.C. this week, we still have a stack of Peace Corps logo patches, stickers, license plate frames, and more for sale in our offices. We’re also accepting contributions for our remaining 2011 Service Day t-shirts.
After they’re gone, you’ll have to buy our merchandise online at the NPCA store.
Sorry this great and important event got so little media coverage. It deserved more.
While I too would have loved more coverage, I want to assure people that strenuous efforts were made by numerous people. The RPCV/W 50th Communication Committee reached out to all the news stations, newspapers and radio stations in Washington about Sunday. NPCA approached Pres. Obama well over a year ago and on an ongoing basis leading right up to the weekend. RPCV Maureen Orth spoke with CNN and CSPAN to get coverage. We put out press releases for Advocacy Day, Service Day, the Gala, Arlington. It should be noted that there were also several major competing events in Washington during those several days, such as the National Book Festival, IMF-World Bank meetings, Congressional Black Caucus, Race for the Cure and a major Discovery Channel event. News bureaus are increasingly short of staff. The NY Times wrote today that there was a labor rally in Washington last October which drew more than 100,000 people, with little news media coverage :-/.
All that said, the Peace Corps community did get coverage. On Monday of the 50th anniversary week Time magazine wrote about our A Call to Peace report and the White House wrote about the NPCA report on its blog several days later. A story on the report was on Huffington Post and the report got traction on Twitter. Maureen Orth’s Peace Corps postcard from Morocco aired on CNN during the anniversary week. The Atlanta Journal Constitution ran a long piece on Friday And Chris Matthews closed his program on Friday by speaking about the Peace Corps for two minutes. Tim Shriver was on Meet the Press on Sunday, referencing the Peace Corps 50th while we were at Arlington. RPCV Rep. Mike Honda had strong pieces in both the Hill and on Huff Post the following Monday. And the Washington Post published a full page spread of photos from our Gala in the 10/2 Sunday Style section.
You can see more of our media coverage for the past year: http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/contact-us/media/#press.