[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 23 (Thursday, March 3, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E348]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E348]]
                       NATIONAL PEACE CORPS WEEK

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. MELISSA L. BEAN

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 3, 2005

  Ms. BEAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today, during National Peace Corps 
Week, in recognition of the Peace Corps on the 44th anniversary of its 
founding and of the thousands of volunteers who have done invaluable 
humanitarian service in countries throughout the world.
  The 7,700 volunteers in the field today have left their families and 
friends in the United States to serve as teachers, business advisors, 
information technology consultants, health and HIV/AIDS educators, and 
youth and agriculture workers.
  Leaving your comfort zone behind and plunging into work in another 
country and another culture is a great challenge. I would like to take 
this time to congratulate the current Peace Corps Volunteers from the 
Eighth Congressional District of Illinois. Shayne Bell, Heather 
Breneisen, Brehan Doud, Nina Elisseou, Joshua Friedman, Ryan Giordano, 
Stacy Greco, Kelly Henshaw, Peter Hicks, Lucie Howe, Kate McCracken, 
James Norris, Stephenie Park, Kevin Rieder, Diane Sears, John Sears, 
Debra Stanislawski and Scott Wilhelm are serving in seventeen countries 
in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.
  These eighteen of my constituents have joined the Peace Corps in 
support of three goals. The first two goals are to help provide 
interested countries with trained men and women and to promote a better 
understanding of Americans by people of other countries. In a time when 
the United States is taking an ever greater role in the international 
community, Peace Corps Volunteers present the best of what America can 
offer to the rest of the world.
  When their time in the Peace Corps is complete, I look forward to 
those volunteers' return to the United States and Illinois' Eighth 
district to begin work on what could be the Peace Corps' most important 
goal: to promote a better understanding of other people and cultures by 
Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join with me today to acknowledge 
the thousands of Americans who serve and have served as Peace Corps 
Volunteers. They are a great credit to our country, and we should 
applaud them.

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