"The Volunteers"

In the classic 1985 comedy "Volunteers," Tom Hanks plays a spoiled playboy forced to join the Peace Corps when his father refuses to pay off his gambling debts. Along with John Candy and Rita Wilson, he heads to a fictional town in Southeast Asia, where the group is tasked with building a bridge and finds itself in the midst of a 3-way feud involving the U.S. military, local Communists (hey it was the 1980s) and a drug lord. Hilarity, as you might expect from such a cast, ensues.

Fortunately, EPIC has had considerably better luck with its volunteers, and a lot more fun. In addition to our two full-time interns, Geoff and Chris, we've been relying upon Julia Stutz, who comes in on Thursday afternoons to help with transcriptions, publicity and various administrative projects. Julia and former EPIC intern Natasha Mooney were invaluable during our refugee letter delivery to Congress, and we also received assistance from several Amnesty International interns who volunteered for one to two days each. Finally, we have recently enlisted Jessica Guiney, who is going to write several guest blogs for us and do some editing on our upcoming reports.

Without these volunteers so generously donating their time, skills and passion, our work would not be possible.

If you're interested in volunteering for EPIC on a flexible schedule -- possibly even from the comfort of your home -- contact us at info@epic-usa.org or fill out our Volunteer Registration Form. We have all sorts of projects and can use people with all sorts of different skills, including editing, graphic design, data entry, guest blogging and more. And if you don't have the time but want to make a difference, please consider making a donation to our work.

Just think -- in the time it might take to watch a ridiculous '80s comedy about the Peace Corps, you can instead make a meaningful contribution to real-life peacebuilding, possibly building your resume in the process. And I can personally guarantee that you'll have a much better time than the guys in "Volunteers," and your contributions won't get blown up with TNT at the end of the day. ;)