- President John F. Kennedy
While on a presidential campaign stop at the University of Michigan on October 14, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy floated the idea of serving in Asia, Africa and Latin America to a group of students. The students liked the idea so much that they began a letter-writing campaign in support of his proposal. Kennedy formally proposed the idea in a major address on November 2, 1960, in San Francisco.
On March 1, 1961, President Kennedy, the first Catholic president of the United States, established the Peace Corps. The Corps would send trained Americans overseas to help nations with development.
In his announcement, the president said the Peace Corps was "designed to permit our people to exercise more fully their responsibilities in the great common cause of world development."
Today more than 200,000 Peace Corps volunteers and staff work in more than 130 countries.
- Little Burgundy Book, Diocese of Saginaw