Sam Gray Boulder CO: The Needs of Host Countries Sam Gray of Boulder CO is a Peace Corps volunteer who is currently living and working in the Dominican Republic, where he is assigned to help an ecotourism business get off the ground. Like all Peace Corps volunteers, Sam Gray of Boulder CO was accepted because his brings with him a specific skillset. As he knows, the types of work that volunteers do are determined by the needs of their host countries, and by the potential of a volunteer to contribute to those needs and to the Peace Corps' mission of promoting world peace and friendship.
Sam Gray of Boulder CO is a graduate of the University of Colorado, where he earned degrees in Economics and International Affairs in 2013. He joined the Peace Corps soon after graduating, and began his training in the Dominican Republic in March of 2014. "He is living with a host family in the capital city, Santa Domingo, and attended daily language classes and business training lectures" a friend reported not long after Sam Gray of Boulder CO arrived. "Sam is learning to take bucket showers because his host family does not have running water. They do have electricity on an intermittent basis. There is no air conditioning. Sam has left behind in the United States the ‘luxuries' that we take for granted." The ecotourism business Sam Gray of Boulder CO is working with (http://kayaklimon.wordpress.com) is based along Laguna Limon, which is part of a wildlife refuge in the northeast part of the Dominican Republic. "Sam reports that the area is spectacularly beautiful," the friend said. The ecotourism business takes tourists on guided trips through the dense thickets of the lagoon, where there is abundant wildlife and unique aquatic vegetation. Peace Corps volunteers like Sam Gray of Boulder CO have been working in the area for several years to develop and promote the project, in an effort to diversify the community's economic base. As an ecotourism project, the idea is to support conservation efforts in the refuge while still allowing tourists access to the area.
Sam Gray of Boulder CO has led several kayak tours, but that is not his actual job at Laguna Limon. He will be working closely with local business leaders and with the tourist hotels in a hundred mile radius of the lagoon to direct business to that developing ecotourism area. The Peace Corps was proposed by former President John F. Kennedy and was officially established on March 1, 1961. To date, more than 214,000 volunteers have served in 139 countries around the world. Sam Gray of Boulder CO is one of about 7,200 active Peace Corps volunteers.