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.
Peace Corps
In a critique by The Future of Freedom Foundation, James Bovard mixes history of the Peace Corps with current interpretations. He writes that in the 1980s, "The Peace Corps's world-saving pretensions were a joke on American taxpayers and Third World folks who expected real help." He goes on to criticize the difference in rhetoric and action of Peace Corps volunteers, even attacking its establishment as "the epitome of emotionalism in American politics." Using snippets of reports, accounts of those in countries affected by the Peace Corps and even concluded that at one point "some Peace Corps agricultural efforts directly hurt Third World poor." At the end of the article, Bovard noted that all Peace Corps volunteers he had talked with conceded they have not helped foreigners ... but he acknowledges that "Some Peace Corps volunteers, like some Americans who volunteer for religion missions abroad, have truly helped foreigners."