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Peace Corps Helps Plant Seeds for Signing of Domestic Service Bill

In this article by Scott Neuman on www.npr.org on April 21 on President Obama's signing of a $5.7 billion national service bill, the author ties the idea for the service bill back to the founding of the Peace Corps by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

In the section entitled "Peace Corps and the Great Society," Neuman discusses how the Peace Corps was created during the cold war and was a way to spread a positive image of America abroad. President Kennedy also saw it creating long-term benefits back home--as Americans learned more about other peoples and cultures, those who returned from peace Corps service would help to create a more informed U.S. foreign policy.

The article says that Peace Corps was within the first wave of American service initiatives, which began with President Roosevelt's New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps, and later the Peace Corps under President Kennedy. The second wave included the domestic service initiative called Volunteers in Service to America, or VISTA, created under the Johnson administration, followed three decades later by Americorps, the national service initiative created by President Clinton.

John Bridgeland, former head of USA Freedom Corps is quoted in the article as saying, "Almost every president, dating back to George Washington, has talked about the need for citizens to volunteer their efforts and expertise to the nation." Bridgeland also called the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, named in honor of the Massachusetts senator who shepherded it, the "quantum leap in community service that we've all been looking for."

Click here to read the entire article.