Peace Corps Commemorative
The Peace Corps program was established by Executive Order 10924, which was issued by President John F. Kennedy on March 1, 1961. The program was legislatively authorized by Congress on September 21, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Pub.L. 87–293). Between 1961 and 2013, over 215,000 Americans joined the Peace Corps. The National Peace Corps Association, a nonprofit organization for Peace Corps alumni, established the Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation to advocate for a commemorative to honor the mission of the Peace Corps and the values on which it was founded.
National Peace Corps Association
At conferences of global educators in the Midwest in the mid-1970s, a handful of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers began meeting regularly to discuss how to promote at home the values and lessons they had learned as Peace Corps Volunteers in the developing world. They adopted as their mission one of the three goals articulated by President John F. Kennedy when he created the Peace Corps in 1961: come home and teach your neighbors about the communities where you served. They gave the growing numbers of returning Peace Corps Volunteers in America a continuing mission and a communal identity as Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs).