"Be servants of peace. Weep with those who are sorrowful, rejoice with those who are joyful,teach those who are ignorant. Care for those who are sick. Serve your families. Serve your neighbors. Serve your cities. Serve the poor. Join others who serve. Serve,Serve, Serve! That's the challenge. For in the end it will be the servants who save us all."
1986,25th Anniversary of The Peace Corps
Fifty years ago John F. Kennedy took the oath of office and on that day he spoke of a new generation, of change, of a country that would and could reshape itself and the world ..."the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.… Now the trumpet summons us again.… I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it." The new President ended his remarks with a challenge to every citizen -"Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country."
Robert Sargent Shriver would become the face and the embodiment of that request..the personification of a call to a generation through his life work. Perhaps best known as the founding director of the Peace Corps in Shriver's guiding hand The Peace Corps would help to fulfill the challenge that President Kennedy set in his inaugural speech on that cold blustery January day 50years ago.
“Working with the Peace Corps should not be like working with another government agency. We have a special mission which can only be accomplished if everyone believes in it and works for it in a manner consistent with the ideals of service and volunteerism.”...“The Peace Corps represents some, if not all, of the best virtues in this society. It stands for everything that America has ever stood for. It stands for everything we believe in and hope to achieve in the world.”
Sargent Shriver's entire life was about that word Service-to his country and to the world. He redefined how Peace and Justice can in fact be reached through that service, bringing dignity and humanity with every step. The founding Director of the Peace Corps, and architect of President Johnson's War on Poverty, Shriver demonstrated that the goals of peace and justice are not dreamy idealist notions, but legitimate goals that can be achieved through practical purpose and application.
"If the war on poverty means anything, it is a statement that we must look-not just to the poor-but to the whole cloth too-and even to the loom. The whole fabric of our society must be rewoven-and the patterns we must weave are patterns of justice,opportunity,dignity and mutual respect" 1966
Sargent Shriver believed that indeed the world could change, that people helping people was a mandate for who we are as a society and as human beings.
"Peace will happen not from the absence of war but from the presence of love. The kind of love that will see to it that men have enough food to eat,enough clothes to wear wear, enough houses to live in." Barcelona 1968
Shriver implemented programs and policies built to create lasting change and have a real impact on real lives...programs he described as a "formula for practical idealism" As the Peace Corps approaches its 50th anniversary it has seen over 200,000 corps volunteers do what Shriver envisioned ..Serve!- in over 139 countries.
For more on the life and work of Sargent Shriver Visit Sargent Shriver and The Peace Corps
