The Peace Corps: It's Not Just for the Young
Like many members of her generation, Marilyn Petersen was inspired by President Kennedy's call to serve in the Peace Corps and its mission of promoting world peace and friendship.

But by 1961, when the Peace Corps was launched, her way was barred by family life. "I got married right out of high school and I had a baby pretty soon after that," says Petersen, a 66-year-old Novato resident. "But it was always in the back of my mind that I'd to do that some day."

Her chance finally came in the mid-1990s, following the deaths of her husband and mother. "The time was right and I thought, 'I'm going to fulfill this dream I've always had and join Peace Corps,'" says Petersen, who worked for 20 years as a teacher at Marin County schools before joining the Corps.

In 1996, Petersen began serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, where she taught at a university and worked with students to preserve the former Soviet nation's folklore. She found her assignment so rewarding that she extended her stay to three and a half years, longer than the usual two-year commitment.

Marilyn Peterson (left) having tea with her host family in Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Petersen is part of a growing trend: men and women who are joining the Peace Corps in their 50s, 60s and 70s after decades of managing families, careers and other commitments that deferred earlier dreams.

Americans age 50 and older now make up about 6 percent of the Corps's 7,800 volunteers, up from less than 1 percent in the 1960s. Volunteers must be at least 18, but there is no upper age limit.

"I think we're seeing this increase because people are retiring younger and they want to do something meaningful. And people over 50 are healthier than ever before," says Dennis McMahon, spokesman for the Corps's regional office in San Francisco.

"A lot of people are not ready to stay at home after they retire and just sit around and do nothing," adds Petersen, who now works as a recruiter at the San Francisco office. "They're looking for something spectacular to do, and they want adventure, and they often want travel and they want to do something that's meaningful.

"And I think the selling point with Peace Corps is that you live at the grassroots level with the local people and you do it over a decent period of time. And it doesn't cost you anything. It only costs you your time and the love you're willing to give," she says.

Charlotte Lucero, 62, joined the Corps in 2003 and served for two years in rural Ecuador, where she provided families with information about alcoholism, drug abuse and sexual issues. Lucero, who worked as an administrator at UC Davis for 30 years, applied to the Corps after she was widowed and then went back to school to finish an undergraduate degree.

"I wanted to retire, but I did not want to just call it a day. So I started asking the question, 'well, what can I do next?' and for some reason Peace Corps came up," says Lucero, a Davis resident. "I had never thought about the Peace Corps for me personally because I thought it was for young people. But as I explored and talked to folks it became a possibility."

Lucero chose the Peace Corps because of its mission - her interest in helping others pushed her to become a Catholic lay minister and a counselor to Latino families in Yolo County - and for the way it is managed. The Corps "provides very good security as part of their commitment to volunteers and their families," she says "And the training appeared to be pretty solid in regards to the acclimation and my own ability to have a sustainable period of time in a country where I would be really on my own once I was out of training."

While life in Ecuador lacked the comforts of home, Lucero says her age never held her back. Of the 34 Peace Corps volunteers in Ecuador at the time, she was one of four who were over 50.

"I believe my age was an asset," Lucero explains. "I was treated with a level of respect that perhaps a younger volunteer wouldn't get. I was invited to do things with families that I'm not sure younger volunteers are. And I believe I left an image for the local women that it's possible to do things as an older woman. You don't need to just stop."

Petersen also found that it helps to be an older volunteer. In Uzbekistan she discovered "that the rest of the world does not treat its aged people like they do in the United States. If you are older, you are deferred to automatically. My students listened at the edge of their seats to everything I had to say."

Like many volunteers, Petersen feels her Peace Corps experience changed her. "You never look at the world in the same way after an experience like this. I think it's made me much more tolerant, and I think I've become a better listener."

Interactions between Peace Corps volunteers and local people also boost America's image in other countries. "I think I helped the Uzbekis understand a little bit about who Americans are. That we're not all Rambo, Baywatch and the Terminator, that we're just people like they are," says Petersen, who is thinking of signing up for another teaching stint in the Corps.

Lucero also feels she "made a difference as a U.S. citizen as to how we are viewed in [Ecuador]. I left a positive image for people who met me that not everybody in America is engaged in war. Because that was a huge question they asked me: 'Why do you people always cause wars?' I would say, 'I'm not about war. I'm only here about teaching.' And people then realized that."

Lucero, who is considering another assignment in Africa, recommends the Peace Corps for "anyone who wants to live abroad and have an experience you can never ever experience otherwise."

Raleigh Ellison, a Berkeley resident and former physics and chemistry teacher who served in Fiji from 1995 to 1997, says the Peace Corps isn't for everyone. But for those who become volunteers, "the rewards are great. Many, many volunteers will tell you that although their goal was to bring their skills, their expertise and their enthusiasm to help other people, they learned and came back with a lot more than they gave."

Life in the Peace Corps is "such a life-changing experience that when you come back you look at society as a place where you can still make a contribution as an older person and where you can still affect young people," adds Ellison, 75, who now volunteers with a Head Start program in Oakland.

Petersen agrees that joining the Peace Corps is not the right move for some older people, including those with remaining family obligations or financial burdens. But for others who have retired, or soon will, and are thinking about what to do next, the Corps may be just the ticket.

"I think that whatever it is that you do, whether it's the Peace Corps or whatever, you've got to be involved in doing things that are giving of yourself," says Petersen. "When you're doing things that are good for other people, that keeps you interested in life and it builds your sense of self-esteem and self-worth."

For information about Peace Corps opportunities for midlife and older adults, see http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.whovol.older.

(This article originally appeared in the Winter 2006 issue of Bay Area Summit)

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