Are you a recent high school graduate with a drive to serve but unsure of what your next step is? Why not join the Peace Corps? It’s easy! Well … not exactly.

Take it from Owen McCaffrey. A resident of Babylon who spent summers in Ellenville as a kid, McCaffrey never pictured the Peace Corps as a stepping stone to a career. However, he currently finds himself in a village in Paraguay, working as a community economic development volunteer for one of the most prestigious independent agencies in the world.

A political science and history graduate of West Virginia University, McCaffrey, 26, was recommended to join the Peace Corps in 2021 by a friend who was accepted and knew about his dedication to community service.

To increase his chances of getting accepted to the competitive organization, he worked as a U.S. Forest Service volunteer for AmeriCorps. The agency, which serves as a domestic version of the Peace Corps, allowed him to work on a trail crew in Montana National Parks, a job that inspired him to travel even further. He later ventured to Romania and Poland and taught English language classes with a local NGO, to increase his volunteer experience and chances of gaining admission.

Last year, he got the call: he had been accepted to the Peace Corps.

“The most fulfilling part is probably integration into the community, learning the language, and getting the trust of other people.” In Paraguay, McCaffrey’s current role focuses on promoting entrepreneurship in the students within his classroom and working on external environmental initiatives that benefit the community.

“I just heard back from a national organization here to donate some new trees to the park that I always run around,” said McCaffrey. “There's about 30 pine trees that surround it and they're all dead. So I found this organization, A Todo Pulmón Paraguay Respira, and they would love to work with me this September.” He has also begun a community compost club and is working to get updated equipment to local fire departments.

“It's very flexible," he said. "It's just kind of walking out there with the elevator pitch and just saying hey, this is my idea would you like to collaborate on this project? Here's what the Peace Corps does and how we could benefit your area or work with you.”

The three main objectives of the Peace Corps are to provide trained volunteers to countries that request volunteers, to share American culture with their host country and to share the culture of their host country with America.

McCaffrey fulfilled the second goal recently by traveling to Ellenville, where he spent every summer growing up, where he gave a presentation at Ellenville High School on his experience in the organization and encouraged the students to explore the opportunity.

“I still remember seeing all my friends go off to college and I still had no idea what I wanted to do. My dad always said that you should have as many options as you can. So I want to help them get as many options as they can out of high school,” he said. “I also want to share my experience in the Peace Corps and the Paraguayan culture itself.”

He talked about his experience of traveling back home to New York with his students in Paraguay. “I shared some pictures of the event with my students here in Paraguay and they were asking about what a classroom is like in the U.S. It's just nice to have that connection between these two schools — one that I'm working with and then one that I shared my experience with.”

Admission to the Peace Corps is highly competitive, so for high school and college graduates looking to the organization as a path for their future, McCaffrey recommends learning another language. Whether it be the language of the host country an applicant is interested in or not, the skill is vital since adapting to a new culture and language is an essential part of the program. Experience with community projects and local government are also green flags on an application.

McCaffrey has one year left in his service with the Peace Corps and plans on returning to the U.S. and searching for jobs. The three years of his life he will have dedicated to community service come with rewards too.

“Something I’m looking forward to after my service is ‘noncompetitive eligibility’ where you apply to any federal job and your application gets sent to the top. It'll be one of the first applications to be seen.” The organization also offers discounted tuition at various universities across America for Peace Corps veterans and a pool of professional network connections.

After he finishes with the Peace Corps, McCaffrey said he will be searching for work in the federal government, specifically in United States Agency for International Development (USAID), NATO or the U.N.