Jeremy Richart felt out of place as he looked out a hotel window onto the landscape made almost entirely of concrete, wrought iron and other metal. But the residents of that Armenian neighborhood welcomed Richart and integrated him into their culture.

"I had to rely upon the kindness of my neighbors and host family to just open up their door and just go, ‘We don't know who you are; you just got shipped to us, but we're going to make you part of our family," he said.

Richart, now working toward a graduate degree at Illinois State University, is one of about 182,000 people who have volunteered with Peace Corps during its 45-year existence. He spent two years as a volunteer in Armenia starting in 2002, and spent another teaching there at a private school.

Melissa Marion, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based organization, said the corps' mission and goals remain almost untouched since 1961. The program has a 30-year high of 7,810 current volunteers.

"Americans like to give, and we're a very idealistic society, I think, in that sense," Marion said. "And I think that that has always remained a part of fulfilling American dream."

At ISU's Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development, graduate students earn degrees by mixing coursework and Peace Corps volunteer work.

Faculty director Frank Beck said the program focuses on economic and community development, and offers degrees in political science, economics and sociology.

The Peace Corps' first focus has always been on education, Marion said, though volunteers now focus partly on HIV and AIDS and business development. Other efforts include improvements for the environment and agriculture and youth development.

Mike Kelleher, who directed the Stevenson Center for its first eight years, was a Peace Corps volunteer with a community health and development project in Sierra Leone when Peace Corps marked its 25th anniversary.

"As a high school student, I was very taken by the Peace Corps slogan 'The toughest job you'll ever love,' and it was the reason I joined as soon as I was eligible," Kelleher said in an email from Tbilisi, Georgia, where he is resident director for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. "I haven't found a better description for my experience."

ISU began its ties with the Peace Corps in 1994 with the Peace Corps Fellows Program, an idea of now-retired professor Bob Hunt, Kelleher said. The university created the Stevenson Center when the program expanded to include the Masters International Program.

"I don't ever recall talking to a returned Peace Corps volunteer who didn't believe that Peace Corps changed their life," Kelleher said. "It up-ends your assumptions about the world we live in and challenges many to make a positive contribution to change in their communities and their work."

Ralph and Louise Bellas of Normal spent two years in the Fiji Islands as volunteers starting in 1986, staying through two military coups in 1987, Ralph Bellas said.

Both had retired from other jobs before signing up, and had one son already volunteering with the Peace Corps, he said.

Bellas taught English and literature at the University of the South Pacific. His wife was assigned to the Fiji School of Nursing.

Bellas said Fiji residents opened their homes and hearts to those trying learn about their culture without being judgmental.

He and Louise went through a ceremony to become village members, and returned to Fiji years after their volunteer work.

"Whenever you go back, you'll be regarded as one of the villagers," Bellas said.

Richart worked with an organization involved in after-school programs for children, and helped gain grants that paid for the town's first playground and for a furnace in the organization's building, he said. He has returned twice to Armenia.

"The individuals there were just amazing in accepting me and showing me their culture and integrating me into the culture as much as they possibly could," Richart said.

The sense of community and openness has made him more conscious of how he interacts with others and has helped him try new things, he said.

Kelleher said the Peace Corps is extraordinarily well-received and remembered in by residents of the small towns and villages it serves. It is "one of the best foreign policy investments that Americans have made.

"And it continues to pay off in goodwill towards our nation and more active connections to other nations of the world."

What it is

The Peace Corps traces its roots and mission to 1960, when then-Sen. John F. Kennedy challenged students at the University of Michigan to serve their country in the cause of peace by living and working in developing countries. From that inspiration grew an agency of the federal government devoted to world peace and friendship.

SOURCE: www.peacecorps.gov

Peace Corps

Officially established: March 1, 1961

Total number of volunteers and trainees to date: 182,000

Total number of countries served: 138

Current number of volunteers and trainees: 7,810

Gender: 58 percent female, 42 percent male

Marital status: 91 percent single, 9 percent married

People of color: 16 percent of volunteers

Age: 28 (average), 25 (median)

Volunteers over age 50: 6 percent (oldest is 79)

Education: 96 percent, undergraduate degree; 13 percent, graduate studies or degrees

Countries served: 69 posts serving 75 countries

SOURCE: www.peacecorps.gov