By Charles Rose

The 2005 Class of Shriver Peaceworkers and Program Staff

2006 marks the 45th anniversary of the Peace Corps, the service program founded by President John F. Kennedy that sent the best and brightest young Americans abroad to help others in the developing world.

This year also marks the 12th year of a different side of the Corps, the Shriver Peaceworker Program at UMBC. Founded by Sargent Shriver, who served under Kennedy as organizer and first director of the Peace Corps, the Shriver Peaceworkers Program focuses on finding ways for returning Peace Corps volunteers (RPCVs) to serve their states and communities when their missions abroad are completed.

According to Joby Taylor, director of the Shriver Peaceworkers Program, the Peaceworkers mission was built around the beliefs of its founder. “Sargent Shriver had the conviction that RPCVs would prove a tremendous resource for meeting social needs right here at home.”

In its dozen years at UMBC, the program has produced 80 graduates, over nearly half of whom have remained in the Baltimore region. These RPCVs have brought experiences from service in over 50 countries, from Armenia to Zimbabwe, to UMBC.

Many UMBC faculty members are RPCVs, including Ed Orser, American studies; Kevin Eckert, Erickson School of Aging Studies; Tom Cronin and Robert Burchard, biological sciences; and Ben Ebersole, education.

The program is one of the nation’s most competitive, and UMBC is one of just a handful of universities to host both a Peace Corps Fellows Program and a Peace Corps Masters International Program. The UMBC program prides itself on a graduation rate of over 90 percent and the fact that its graduates tend to stay in service careers.

“We have Peaceworkers doing good works throughout the Baltimore region,” said Taylor. “You’ll find our graduates in the Mayor’s office and City Council's offices, small and large local non-profits, local and regional schools, and at institutions like the Enoch Pratt Free Library system, the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore. In my humble opinion, the program is without doubt the City's best unknown force for positive social change.”

During their two years at UMBC, Peaceworker Fellows split their time with local community programs focused on homelessness, educational inequality, micro-enterprise development, public health, youth services and many other issues that impact Marylanders’ lives.

A quick cross-section look at the work of some current Shriver Peaceworkers reveals the Program’s depth of involvement and impact in the community:

• Richard Kimball did his Peace Corps service as an English teacher and community development volunteer in Moldova. He is earning a Ph.D. in Public Policy at UMBC while continuing his nursing career. Kimball also works with Baltimore Homeless Services, where he has been instrumental in leading Baltimore’s homeless census efforts and developing a long range policy plan to reduce homelessness in the city.

• Jeromy McKim drew on his experience growing up on a Wyoming farm during his Peace Corps stint with Honduras’s Hillside Farming Extension project. He is earning a Masters in Economic Policy Analysis at UMBC. McKim also serves with the Patterson Park Community Development Corporation’s Healthy Neighborhoods Initiatives, working to ensure fair housing and preserve the potential of green housing in a rapidly transitioning neighborhood.

• Mi Kim’s Peace Corps service focused on HIV/AIDS education in Belize. Kim is earning a Masters of Social Work at UMB while serving with the St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center focusing on decreasing predatory lending practices and home foreclosures.

• Former National Merit Scholar Carrie Wilson served in the Peace Corps in Guinea as a Math and English teacher and also coordinated a number of health and education activities for young girls. Wilson is earning a Masters in Economic Policy Analysis at UMBC. She serves at Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore to support micro-enterprise development as a key path out of poverty.

• Jason Sharp’s Peace Corps service took him to Haiti, where he worked on small enterprise development projects and assessing area educational needs. Sharp is earning his Masters of Social Work at UMB and working at Paul’s Place, a neighborhood services and outreach center in Southwest Baltimore. He has become an integral member of the Center, providing shelter, food, training and other essentials to the surrounding community.
  

According to Taylor, in the face of so much political, ethnic and religious division in today’s world, programs like the Peaceworkers are needed more than ever.

“President Hrabowski often challenges the UMBC community to take opportunities to learn about people different from ourselves because it broadens our understanding of others,” said Taylor. “Peace Corps is this intercultural opportunity par excellence. There is little doubt that in an increasingly multicultural world that Peaceworkers and other programs like it are needed both at home and abroad.”