Colin Luse, Special to The Denisonian

Four alumni shared how serving abroad reshaped their understanding of grassroots development work and their responsibility as global citizens.

Since 1961, the Peace Corps has sent Americans abroad to work alongside local partners in education, health, and development. For Denison alumni who have served, that experience has left a lasting impact on their lives, and shaped their own values, careers, and sense of responsibility.

They had varied experiences during their time in the Peace Corps from subsistence farming villages high in the Andes to classrooms in Cambodia and Peru to health centers in rural South Africa. These Denison alums described their Peace Corps service as challenging but also formative, because it taught them that long-term results do not come through quick solutions but rather through patience, humility, and community.

Kathryn Pongonis ’91 in Ecuador

Pongonis served as a Peace Corps agricultural volunteer in Ecuador from 1992 to 1994, living in a small village called Julio Moreno in the Andes at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level. The subsistence farming community relied primarily on corn, wheat, and barley, which although filling, lack certain nutrients. Her work focused on soil preservation, crop rotation, and improved nourishment.

Pongonis taught the villagers how to grow and cook with vegetables such as Swiss chard, spinach, zucchini, broccoli, and beets. She also helped establish a large garden plot at a preschool so vegetables could be more readily available to children.

Decades later, Pongonis still appreciates the importance of her service. She remains in touch with former students, many of whom represented the first generation in the families to graduate from college.

Pongonis also serves on the board of the National Peace Corps Association, which is a large alumni network that encourages sustained civic and volunteer engagement among returned Peace Corps volunteers.

“We talk about the ‘domestic dividend,’” she said. “What do returned Peace Corps volunteers bring back to the United States? How do we make our communities more informed, more secure, more prosperous because of what we learned overseas?”

Pongonis described the Peace Corps as fundamental to who she is today and one of the most transformative experiences of her life. Joining the Peace Corps created lifelong friendships and skills she carried with her throughout her 25-year career as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. State Department.

Raymond Marolt ’14 in Peru

Marolt, a history major with a music minor, entered the Peace Corps after studying abroad in Spain and volunteering in Colombia. From 2016 to 2018, he served as a youth development volunteer in Peru, splitting his time between the remote Amazonian town of La Peca and the capital, Cajamarca.

Marolt was actually the first development volunteer in La Peca, so a lot of his work involved explaining what the Peace Corps was and implementing very basic community organizing. He built strong relationships with school leadership, and collaborated with them on launching summer school and sex education programs.

Marolt lived with a host family of 10 people who ran a small bodega and farmed about 10 acres of land. He had a challenging living situation. He lived in a concrete room with a metal sheeting roof which made the heat brutal, and the water in the house was not drinkable. Also, he had to continually take malaria medication due to the abundance of mosquitoes.

After eight months in La Peca, Marolt moved to Cajamarca where his role shifted. As a skilled violinist, he helped lead a youth orchestra and taught violin and music literacy. He also worked with Peru’s National School Meals Program to improve food preparation and sanitation. 

While assisting the program, he encountered longstanding inefficiencies and misuse of funds. Marolt formed a volunteer group of college students studying food engineering and supply chain management. Together, they worked to improve the meals program by monitoring the food supply chain, ensuring purveyors were providing good quality products, and overseeing sanitation and food preparation within schools.

In order to implement the necessary changes, he stressed the importance of a “community diagnostic” which involved partnering with community leaders and listening to local residents to identify and address the most urgent problems. Marolt believes that in order for any volunteer to be successful, they need to conduct a similar diagnostic in their first 6 to 12 months.

Marolt’s open-minded and humble approach shows how Peace Corps service teaches volunteers that lasting change requires understanding prior to action.

Today, Marolt works as an International Relations Officer at the U.S. Department of Labor. He credits his career path in part to the adaptability and cross-cultural skills he developed during his service.

Henry Gamble ’24 in Cambodia

Gamble lives in a town of about 20,000 people in northern Cambodia, and he is currently working alongside two Denison alumni, Jacob Cropp ‘23 and Meredith Ehlers ‘22.

Gamble described how the Peace Corps program in Cambodia is intentionally structured around community life. All volunteers live in homestays. Gamble lives with a multi-generational family of around 20 people and eats dinner with them every night, a requirement of the program. He greatly admires that aspect of his service because that family connection has brought him into the daily routine of village life. For instance, Gamble mentioned he was just with his family harvesting rice in the fields the previous night.

Gamble greatly appreciates his living situation because this structure aligns with the nature of Cambodian culture, which is generally very collectivist and community oriented. He stressed his admiration for the community aspect in Cambodia, and he’s seen firsthand how Cambodian families care for one another.

“If your grandparents are sick, they’re going to move in with you, no question,” he said. “Your brother is having problems? You’re going to give him some money and help him through it. People are just there for one another.”

For Gamble, that sense of mutual responsibility has been one of the most powerful parts of his experience.

All Peace Corps volunteers in Cambodia currently serve in the education sector. Gamble teaches English to fourth, fifth, and sixth graders at a local primary school. He says that the work is intensive. Most of the students do not know English, so it takes a lot of effort to bridge the communication gap.

Fortunately, there is a co-teaching model allowing Gamble to collaborate with a Cambodian teacher on lesson planning. Gamble is learning some Khmer while teaching some of his colleagues English.

Gamble said that the co-teaching model has taught him not to impose his students. “I don’t want to be going into the classroom acting like I know it all. I’m teaching people who might have a completely different understanding of education or of the world, so I really appreciate the chance to work with Cambodian teachers.”

Mac Hammett ‘23 in South Africa

Hammett came to Denison this past December to talk about his service in South Africa. Hammett began his Peace Corps service in August 2023, working in the rural Maruleng Municipality of Limpopo Province. He became fluent in Sepedi, the native language, through daily conversations with his host father, Jacob, around evening fires.

Hammett’s living conditions were simple. He had a sparsely furnished room and had to fetch water from a storage tank, cook over a wood fire, and use outdoor toilets. Part of his work centered on a community drop-in center that provided nutrition and hygiene education to over 120 children, often offering the only meal they would receive that day.

“Change doesn’t come from showing up with answers,” Hammett said. “It comes from listening first.”

Hammett’s main focus was on addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa, where stigma remains a significant barrier to testing and treatment. Many community members are afraid to avail themselves of free testing and medication. Hammett and his team took an empathetic approach, inviting ambassadors successfully managing their HIV treatment to share their stories and normalize the experience.

While treatment itself is free, Hammett understood the other barriers patients faced. Transportation for follow-up appointments can be prohibitively expensive, and distance alone becomes a barrier to care. Nutrition posed another challenge. Local diets are heavily starch-based, which can be harmful for individuals with compromised immune systems. Hammett tried to provide a holistic approach to care that addressed daily habits and structural constraints alongside medical treatment. For instance, Hammett would often bring vegetables with him on home visits.

Hammett’s experience reflects a recurring theme across alumni service stories. Meaningful change begins with listening. From learning Sepedi to addressing public health challenges through intervention rooted in empathy, his work underscores the importance of effective community-led development which is the Peace Corp’s mission.

Rather than arriving with solutions, Hammett embedded himself in daily life, building trust and understanding before taking action. In doing so, Hammett’s service illustrates how effective development work is less about expertise and more about presence, patience, and partnership. 

These four alumni see the Peace Corp as more relevant than ever, not only for the communities volunteers serve, but also for the volunteers who return home with a deeper understanding of the world and their place in it.