The Spirit of the Volunteer

The Spirit of the Volunteer is a journey of a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) who searches for that “one thing” to help a small community improve their lives. Beginning with the initial in-country language and cultural training center in Pantoja, Santo Domingo, DR. to the actual project site within an urban pueblo of la Provincia de Peravia. This is a raw and daily account of one volunteer’s service to help find change within a pueblo he came to serve.

”Americans are volunteering for service organizations in record numbers, and the trend seems destined to continue with the rise of idealistic young millennials and Generation Xers. But idealistic volunteers must enter realistic social systems to make a difference, and that experience can often overwhelm them. The book reveals the actual journal of a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1990s who served a rural community in the Dominican Republic, and it hopes to convey a credible account of what it really takes to be a volunteer in our world today and tomorrow. It is transparent in its sharing of the hopes and fears, successes and failures, and the positives and negatives regarding both the community served as well as the community of volunteers who came to serve.”

Michael R. Carey, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Organizational Leadership School of Leadership Studies, Gonzaga University

About the Author

Roger A. Haring is the author of this narrative memoir based on three years of actual journal writings (1993–96) within the Dominican Republic, where he served as an Agricultural Extensionist. Just prior to his Peace Corps assignment, Haring completed a Horticultural Internship at Walt Disney World-EPCOT Center and then graduated from the Crop Science Department of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California. In August of 1993, in hopes of finding something in the real world, he departed from home, to find something so close to his spirit!

Los Angeles, California.