Peace Corps

Well, I have to admit that I used to steal toilet paper.

I was in the Peace Corps.

I was deployed down in Bolivia.

And first of all, my hut, there was supposed to have been a latrine.

Correct.

In addition to the Peace Corps, I think this country, it would be great if they could pay for one semester or one summer program in high school, public schools, maybe college even, where if you live in a blue state, you go live in a red state for like two weeks.

You talked a lot about polarization and partisanship in this conversation, but during an election, if you find yourself – mainlining Politico and Axios and Puck, and you've got loud opinions, or maybe you read the Jacobin and you live in Greenpoint, take a beat.

If you live in New York, you can drive to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

And I'll give an example that is maybe relatable for some people.

I did Peace Corps and went a little too far with partying and with exploring my sexuality in ways...

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that I felt good about, but then like you get in a situation where, you know, maybe there's consent, but then it's like, no, I, this actually isn't what I wanted to do, but there, but it's a really gray area.

And then I, I needed to take a pause and be like, why am I doing this to myself? Let me, let me take a pause.

And then I, A few months after that, my ex-husband came with a cohort of volunteers to Peace Corps, and he was like a very safe kind of very safe, safe person.

And because of that pendulum swing into more adventure.

Another phrase I got from Rich Rodriguez, actually, the old Michigan and now West Virginia again coach, uh, "When it's too hard for everyone else, it's just right for us." And I like that one.

So, uh, great organizations like the Navy SEALs, like the Peace Corps, the harder it gets, the more they brag about it.

Bad organizations, which is most of them, they start whining and complaining.

Who's that helping? Um, the Navy SEALs got a phrase, "Embrace the suck." [laughs] No matter how much it sucks, say, "Yeah, this sucks even more now.

service program?

So it was like, you know, like Peace Corps or kind of like, what's the other one? AmeriCorps kind of thing.

Yeah, exploitation of

young people.

that I actually was involved with prior to this role that did a similar thing for college students and high school students as well.

And Peace Corps.

A lot of programs came out.

Yeah, Peace Corps as well.

Mark, so one of the things I always ask our people who we interview on this show is what are some of the opportunities for somebody listening to potentially give back as a volunteer or as a donor or both within the program?

Sure.

This is our line of defense.

Wilson spent much of his life adjacent to climate issues, growing up amid drought and wildfire in Colorado and spending almost four years in the 1990s in the Peace Corps on Savai, an island in Samoa that had just been stunned by a hurricane.

But he didn't start focusing on climate work until he moved to New York City.

where he jumped around different parts of city bureaucracy before landing on a project in edgemere a neighborhood in queens that had been overwhelmed by sandy's waves he moved into climate mitigation full time that included work on preventing basement deaths the kind caused by ida a storm that he said brought home how all of the city was truly built for a different weather regime hence the need for new pumps.

This is our line of defense.

Wilson spent much of his life adjacent to climate issues, growing up amid drought and wildfire in Colorado and spending almost four years in the 1990s in the Peace Corps on Savai, an island in Samoa that had just been stunned by a hurricane.

But he didn't start focusing on climate work until he moved to New York City.

where he jumped around different parts of city bureaucracy before landing on a project in edgemere a neighborhood in queens that had been overwhelmed by sandy's waves he moved into climate mitigation full time that included work on preventing basement deaths the kind caused by ida a storm that he said brought home how all of the city was truly built for a different weather regime hence the need for new pumps.