De'Zaria LucasReginald Hodges, an N.C. Central University alumnus and former Peace Corps volunteer, was one of many notable speakers during the Peace Corps Week, which lasted between Feb. 23 – March 1.
Many volunteers, including LaHoma Smith Romocki, NCCU’s Public Health department chair and 2008 Franklin H. Williams awardee, attended the event.
The Peace Corps is a United States government program that sends volunteers to developing countries. Former President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps Sept. 22, 1961. The program has been on NCCU’s campus for several years.
Reginald Hodges, 80, was in high school when Kennedy started talking about the Peace Corps. He said he wanted to go to the Peace Corps to make a difference.
“Staying out of the military, avoiding Vietnam,” Hodges said. “I wanted to do something different and exciting before I did that. My reasoning was complex.”
Hodges also explained that in 1965, NCCU lacked the Peace Corps program.
People become Peace Corps volunteers for different reasons and each volunteer learns something new about themselves and how their contributions can help.
Hodges said that he benefited from joining.
“I think you have a feeling of achievement when you help people improve the quality of their life, that would be one feeling you get from helping people,” Hodges said. “Number two I would say personal growth, I would say you learn a lot about yourself.”
Celeste Hodges, Reginald’s wife, added that you never stop being a volunteer.
“You talk about Peace Corps volunteers, even after we were finished, it’s this worldwide community of people who care,” she said.
When traveling to a different country, Celeste said that she learned what people from other cultures thought about the world.
“Not everybody thinks like Americans,” she said. “One of the first things I’ve learned is that because you have family, your community have agreed on a certain idea about something going on the rest of the world does not necessarily feel the same way.”
Reginald also said that it was interesting, since it provided “different thought patterns.”
“Like people wanna have a lot of children because they feel like children are wealth and they can be there to work on the farm,” Reginald said.
Students, including freshman Adrian Brown, attended an event during the Peace Corps week.
“I am interested in the Peace Corps because I have always been a humanitarian at heart and I like to volunteer for stuff and just serve my community so if I could do that for other countries then I am always willing to help,” he said.
“I just want to get that experience of being in a country and actually experiencing the people and the culture and just the way of life, instead of going there for vacation and just getting the tourist experience.”
Brown gained some insight about the program, adding that he learned a lot from Hodges’s conversation on his time as a volunteer.
“When he was talking about his experience when the war came and the people [volunteers] basically had to leave the country, but he decided to stay to help and he was talking to the warlords and stuff,” he said. “I felt like that whole part was kind of cool because that kind of thing you only see in movies.”
“So the fact that he lived that experience and survived it, it’s kind of inspirational.”
Brown said he was inspired by the program.
“One thing I hope to contribute [If selected to be in the Peace Corps] is just giving people hope and inspiration,” he said. “And be that walking truth that no matter your past and where you brought up, that you control your fate and your destiny.”
