Nicole Bales: Everyday People: Astoria educator to volunteer in Gambia
May 30—When Halie Korff learned about Peace Corps, she was set on joining. She saw the volunteer work as a way to give back for the help and support she received growing up.
Having gone through the foster care system and living with different family members growing up, she came to rely on neighbors, especially her teachers and coaches.
"When I moved to Astoria it was like my life kind of changed in the sense that my teachers cared," said Korff, who graduated from Astoria High School and Western Oregon University. "I just felt like I was getting so much.
"They all fought tooth and nail for me."
Korff said she felt like she could not repay the high school, her coaches, Upward Bound professor and principal Lynn Jackson, who she said became her guardian angel after he found out about her troubles at home.
"I just want to mean something to people the way that these people mean to me," she said.
Korff is among the first Peace Corps volunteers to return to overseas service since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when the agency suspended global operations and evacuated nearly 7,000 volunteers.
She plans to leave in early June for Gambia in West Africa, where she will spend the next two years.
After a three-month training, Korff and the other volunteers will collaborate with their host communities on locally prioritized projects in one of the Peace Corps' six sectors — agriculture, community economic development, education, environment, health or youth in development. All projects will engage in pandemic response and recovery work.
Korff's goal was to leave for a trip directly after graduating college, but the pandemic delayed her plans. Using her degree in early childhood education, she has spent her time working as a substitute teacher. She also coached track and field at Astoria High School, where she was a thrower before moving on to the team at Western Oregon University.
She waited for opportunities to volunteer in Nepal — her first choice — but when she got an email for an opening in Gambia she decided to go.
"I don't usually have my heart set on things. I usually just take (life) for what it is," Korff said. "This is quite literally the only thing that I've ever wanted. So, I'm really, really excited to be able to go."
