Thank You For My Freedom

God Bless the fallen and our troops defending our freedom as I write this. Please take a moment to remember and honor all we have to be thankful for.

Source: Remember.gov

There’s always a contribution to be made. As you know, I am a passionate returned Peace Corps volunteer and AmeriCorps inaugural year volunteer. Find opportunities to help where you can at Serve.gov.

More Peace Corps. Bigger. Better. Bolder.

Today is the Peace Corps National Day of Action.

Very creative holiday wrapping paper from a friend and fellow volunteer.

It also happens to be the day I finally uploaded some of the many photos from my tour of duty in Turkmenistan.
A coinsidence, I think not!

The Peace Corps comes up for me on a nearly daily basis. In fact, I spoke on a panel about social media for non-profits last week and mentioned that I was a Peace Corps and AmeriCorps volunteer and that it was National Peace Corps week. I had instant connections with several people in the audience who came to me later to discuss their experiences in the Peace Corps, too.

So what’s the difference between National Peace Corps Week and the Peace Corps National Day of Action. Well, while last week was about sharing our stories with you. Today is about asking you to take action.

Peace Corps Week Kicks Off

Wow! I can hardly believe it’s been nearly 10 years since I returned from my work as a Peace Corps volunteer English teacher in Turkmenistan. Connecting flights in Azerbaijan… ah those were the days.

Who’s Really Poor?: Confessions of a Journalist, Turned Peace Corps Volunteer, Turned Journalist Again, Turned Social Media Evangelist

 

Poverty…
 

To write about it is to see it. To experience it. To try to save people from it.

Hopefully.
 

Once upon a time, I was a TV reporter in my hometown. I was known – and to be known -  by anyone and everyone who knew my stories about last-dash Christmas shopping or Sarah McLachlan coming to town.

 
I often covered a different caliber of stories, though.

I covered the cases of hundreds of missing children, who were almost never found alive and were a constant reminder of, perhaps,  how the media lies in wait for tragedy to befall families. Often of little means, these families would wait, hold vigils and allow us access to their lives that would later make them recognized, for the most unsettling of reasons, at the local grocery store or pharmacy for the rest of their lives.

 

Jennifer reporting on the streets of New York City.

That was my early take on the media before I spent more than a decade reporting for the ‘big three’ and going to Columbia for my master’s. Somehow I knew if I didn’t take a break – a break to give back and help the plight of children – I would, by not making a decision to do otherwise, become bitter.

 

At 22, that’s a terrifying prospect.
 

So I searched my soul, looked back at the list I’d made a couple years earlier and embarked on the most testing experience of my life. I gave up being a local celeb to become a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan. It was one of the richest, most defining experiences of my life. I still remember a local journalist telling me at my going away party that he could never join the Peace Corps because one can’t be promised a working hair dryer.

Clips & Articles About Jennifer

Magazine, Newspaper & Web
Dinner with Sopranos is offer that’s hard to refuse (Contra Costa Times, Sept. 14, 2001) [theater review]
Jennifer as Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan [written in Turkmen cyrillic, 1998-1999 *Translation to come]
In Action (Page 5, The New California Democrat, Vol. 4 – Winter 1994-95) [DLC of California]
Journey of Love (Clovis Independent-Fresno Bee, Sept. 4-10, 1994) [Peace Corps]
Washington Bound (Fresno Bee, June 10, 1993)
Day of Champions (Fresno County Board of Supervisors Resolution, April 21, 1992) [Declared in part due to Jennifer's national collegiate debate ranking]

Favorite Quotes

My last two years of high school, I was involved in the Forensics program (otherwise known as speech and debate). I remember being scared shitless; I mean I already had issues being around men (my father’s death at age 34 strained many areas of my young life), but I remember being around my Svengali-esque forensics coach was especially hard. I talked to my mom about it. I wanted to quit right then, on day three of class and transfer to something else. Then something magical happened,