Peace Corps marks 60 years, Hazleton native reflects on his service

Apr. 22—Alexander Lennartz was out of college and living in Europe when he decided to volunteer for the Peace Corps.

He saw it as a way to fulfill government service while learning a foreign language.

"It was a very small village in northern Kazakhstan close to the Russian border," Lennartz said of where he served.

Lennartz's assignment with the agency, which marks its 60th anniversary this year, was as a teacher. It was a role that the first Peace Corps volunteers filled in Ghana.

Since then, the Corps has served in more than 140 countries to help with teaching, agriculture, health and more.

Lennartz taught English as a Second Language to primary school students in a town of about 5,000 people from 2004-06.

"Living conditions were okay," he wrote in an email to the Standard-Speaker. "Winter was long, dark and cold (reached -40C). Not much to do there."

When his service ended, he briefly returned to Hazleton. He applied to graduate school and went to Middlebury Institute of International Education in Monterey, California, on a Peace Corps scholarship studying International Policy.

Lennartz decided to volunteer again for the Corps. This time, he joined Peace Corps Response, a special program for returned volunteers.

On that mission, he taught students in Luhansk, Ukraine, from 2012-13.

"I lived in Ukraine before and liked it," he explained.

The Response program offered student loan forgiveness, plus it was a good opportunity for Lennartz to become a better teacher, he said.

Asked if he would consider his service or experiences rewarding, Lennartz said he believes they were.

"It really is a sacrifice (years of your life and money in opportunity costs) but I'm proud my old students keep in touch with me and say I really helped them out," he said. "Some live in the United States now. (It) gave me a lot of perspective."

Lennartz continues to teach abroad. He lives and works in Shenzen, China.

"Peace Corps was my first teaching job, so it did start me on this career," he said. 'Shenzhen is a gigantic, rich city. It is a big contrast from a tiny village on the edge of Siberia"

Even so, he said, he's found that classrooms all around the world are more or less the same, be they American, Russian or Chinese.

"You need to motivate (students) and provide a good learning environment and they will show you their capabilities," Lennartz explained.

Since it was established in 1961, more than 240,000 Americans have volunteered for the Peace Corps.

Marjorie M. Wass, a Peace Corps spokeswoman, said thousands of volunteers are typically deployed internationally. Last year, 2020, was a bit different because of the coronavirus pandemic.

"When we had a major evacuation about a year ago because of COVID-19, we evacuated about 7,000 volunteers from everywhere around the world," she said.

Wass said volunteers are sent to places where help is needed.

"We're usually in 60-plus countries," she said. "We work at the invitation of host countries to try to fulfill their needs for trained men and women."

Even though the corps' global operations have been suspended, it plans to dispatch volunteers when it's safe to do so.

Volunteers' duties can range from teaching English to working in agriculture. They're trained beforehand. The majority of deployments are for two years.

At the moment, volunteers who were evacuated or finished their service terms are being deployed across the United States to help the Federal Emergency Management Agency with COVID-19 vaccination efforts.

The partnership marks second time in Peace Corps' 60-year history that the agency has deployed volunteers in U.S. The first was following Hurricane Katrina.

"The Peace Corps works hand-in-hand with communities on their most pressing challenges, and right now the U.S. faces some of the biggest challenges in our country's history," Peace Corps Acting Director Carol Spahn said. "The volunteers who contribute to this effort will bring valuable cross-cultural experience, language skills and adaptability fostered during their time overseas as they contribute to an equitable vaccination campaign here at home."

More information can be found at www.peacecorps.gov or on Facebook.

Contact the writer: jwhalen@standardspeaker.com; 570-501-3592.