President’s Letter: Helping the Peace Corps Be Its Best
As we celebrate Volunteers returning to service in dozens of countries, we pay tribute to a leader here at NPCA who made a difference at a critical time for the Peace Corps community. By Dan Baker At left: El Paso, 2019 — Glenn Blumhorst assists migrants at the border. Just as the Winter 2023 edition of WorldView went press, Carol Spahn was sworn in as Director of the Peace Corps. I was delighted to be there as RPCV Rep. John Garamendi delivered the oath of office. This is an exciting and important moment. The Peace Corps community has spent nearly three years seeking to maintain and...
Be Good, Be Kind, and Be Lucky
Parting advice from a writer and friend By Steven Boyd Saum Almost three decades ago, before I left California to begin serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine, my friend Clark Blaise passed along the phone number for a fellow writer he knew in Kyiv. Yaroslav Stelmakh was the first Ukrainian to receive a fellowship to attend the International Writing Program at Iowa — a program that Clark directed and, since 1967, has connected well-established writers from around the globe. Slava Stelmakh (that's him on the left) was primarily a playwright — and staking out what was newly possible to say and...