Returned Peace Corps members in northern New Mexico are marking Peace Corps Week, March 1–7, by reflecting on decades of international service and the agency’s founding mission of “peace and friendship.”

The Peace Corps was established Mar. 1, 1961, after President John F. Kennedy’s call to service: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” Since then, more than 240,000 Americans have served in communities around the world.

Becky Reardon, 82, of Lama, was among the early volunteers. She joined the Peace Corps in 1965, part of what she describes as the “pioneer days” of the agency.

“I was graduating from college and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do,” Reardon said. “A friend of mine went to Ethiopia. My grandparents were missionaries. It didn’t seem strange to me to go to another country therefore joining was a natural decision.”

Reardon served 27 months in the Philippines, training teachers in modern English-language instruction at a time when the country was struggling with declining fluency in English. While English was the language of instruction, she said, students were falling behind as a culture in other subjects due to their limited English.

“What we could offer was being native speakers,” she said. “Language helped change the tide for the communities. We helped them modernize their proficiency, which allowed them to improve their overall understanding of other subjects.”
Reardon said volunteers underwent intensive conditions while they were adapting to their new lives abroad. After 12 weeks, she was speaking Tagalog and living far from family, often missing holidays and milestones back home.

“It’s the toughest job you’ll ever love,” she said.

Beyond teaching, Reardon embraced the Peace Corps’ second and third goals: sharing American culture while learning from host communities and bringing that experience back to the United States. A singer, she performed in Filipino languages at social gatherings — an experience that later shaped her career. After returning home, she performed in San Francisco folk clubs and met Charles Schulz who created the Charlie Brown cartoons. Down the road, she sang on several “Charlie Brown” television specials.

The agency’s mission includes three core goals: helping countries meet technical needs they request; promoting a better understanding of Americans abroad; and helping Americans better understand other cultures when volunteers return home. Volunteers take an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution before serving.

Pilar Robledo, who served in Kyrgyzstan from 1996 to 1998 after the fall of the Soviet Union, said her experience came at a pivotal geopolitical moment.

“The world was changing,” Robledo said. “The Soviet Union had fallen. What did that mean for foreign policy and foreign assistance?”

Stationed in a mountainous region with 24,000-foot peaks, Robledo taught English to students in grades five through 11 and she taught Spanish at a university. Despite high literacy rates and widespread bilingualism in Kyrgyz and Russian, schools and hospitals often lacked basic supplies.

“There were schools but no paper. Universities and hospitals but no thread to suture wounds,” she said. “There was an airport — but no planes and no fuel.”

She said teaching English was seen as critical as the country redefined itself and engaged more with the global economy.
Robledo later joined the Peace Corps staff, serving as deputy director in Ukraine and working in Mozambique. She has spent three decades overseas in international development and humanitarian work.

“Anyone who finishes the Peace Corps can do hard things, and finish what they start,” she said. “It showcases resiliency. You learn and you can do hard things.”

About 70% of volunteers complete their full term, with most early departures due to health or conditions in-country, Robledo said. The agency has also expanded options, including shorter-term and virtual service opportunities.

Locally, returned volunteers plan gatherings in Taos and Questa to mark Peace Corps Week, reconnect and encourage new generations to serve.

“We’re always supposed to do something in March,” Reardon said. “It’s an opportunity to talk about peace and friendship.”
Robledo said New Mexico has a strong tradition of service, from military families to international volunteers.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” she said, “to have someone from Questa answer the call to international dialogue to promote peace and friendship in the Peace Corps? It’s incredible that there are other ways you can serve your country outside of military service.”

For Reardon, the call Kennedy issued 65 years ago still resonates.

“I would do it again if given the opportunity at that point in my journey,” she said. “It changed my life.”