Evergreen Park Peace Corps Volunteer Leaves For Thailand

EVERGREEN PARK, IL — An Evergreen Park Community High School graduate will be leaving on a 27-month assignment this Wednesday for the Peace Corps. Katie Hohman, 23, will begin training as an English co-teacher volunteer in Thailand.

Hohman is fresh off a year-long stint with the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, doing boots-on-the-ground work building and repairing houses for Hurricane Harvey victims and planting gardens in Arizona. Hohman started the highly competitive application process for the Peace Corps last March. She found out in May that she had been accepted.

“I was attracted to the Peace Corps because it blended my love of service and my desire to teach in a classroom,” Hohman said. “Also, as a social studies teacher, I found it to be an advantage to have lived firsthand in a different community and culture and to have the ability to bring those experiences to my students.”

Part of the process for leaving involved a lengthy medical and psychological clearance. The Peace Corps places volunteers in countries that have the amenities to address any medical needs. She’s undergone a battery of shots, including one for preventing malaria.

“Everything has to be checked out,” Hohman said. “I have medical allergies, so they checked off several countries that couldn’t handle my special needs.”

The oldest of 12 children, all products of Evergreen Park public schools, Hohman is used to being a leader. She attended Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Ia., where she earned a bachelor’s secondary education and history. Prior to joining the Peace Corps, she volunteered with Lunch Buddies, Hallmark Care Center and Rotaract. She also worked with the Little Bit Foundation in St. Louis tutoring students, and mentored with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Topeka, KS. Her volunteer experiences have been life-changing.

Hohman’s AmeriCorps team was able to restore an older woman’s house in the Houston area that had been heavily damaged by Hurricane Harvey.

“Her house had been built by her grandmother and when it was destroyed she was devastated,” Hohman said. “She had been without a house for two years. We were able to clear it, so she could move back in. She was able to get that connection back to her family and tell her story through her house.”

Hohman’s parents, David and Colleen, and her friends threw her a going-away party Saturday at St. James Place. She leaves Jan. 8 for San Francisco, where she will stage with other Thailand-bound Peace Corps volunteers. Hohman and the other volunteers will fly to Hong Kong and catch another plane for Thailand. She will live with a host family in Bangkok for the first three months while training for her permanent position, and another host family when she receives her permanent assignment.

There are more than 115 volunteers in Thailand working with their communities on projects in education and youth development. During their service in Thailand, volunteers learn to speak Thai. More than 5,480 Peace Corps volunteers have served in Thailand since the program was established by President John F. Kennedy in 1962.

“I specifically applied to Thailand because I absolutely love Thai food,” Hohman said. “On a more serious note, I have never been to Thailand and I have always heard it is an absolutely beautiful country and I thought it would be intriguing to live in a constitutional monarchy.”

Hohman will work in cooperation with the local people and partner organizations on sustainable, community-based development projects that improve the lives of people in Thailand and help Hohman develop leadership, technical and cross-cultural skills that will give her a competitive edge when she returns home. Peace Corps volunteers return from service as global citizens well-positioned for professional opportunities in today’s global job market.

“I’m exited but it hasn’t hit me yet that I’ll be leaving for over two years,” she said. “It’s one thing to visit Thailand, but another lived there with Thai people.”