With the first 50 years of the Peace Corps behind us and more than 200,000 former volunteers, we need to take stock of its original purpose and consider what still needs to be done. When President Kennedy proposed the Peace Corps in 1961, he envisioned a volunteer corps of 100,000 Americans each year. But at its high point, the maximum number sent has been 15,000 volunteers in a given year. In 2006 former President George W. Bush called for a doubling of Peace Corps' size, but to no avail.
