Peace Corps Fellows Program at WIU - Example of Internships

When Peace Corps Fellow Christian Tscheschlok began his internship in Rock Falls Illinois he found that he had plenty to accomplish. He needed to draw the community together and overcome skepticism from former attempts at economic development. To accomplish this he drew on skills learned in Peace Corps.

As Jack Spencer, Rock Falls Community Development Corporation Vice President, noted “Living and working in another country taught him to be a great listener, which is key to economic and community development because both are about uncovering challenges and opportunities, developing a plan of action, and building the consensus necessary to implement that plan.” Christian’s Peace Corps service in the Slovak Republic gave him some of the necessary skills to bring the interested citizens of Rock Falls together and coalesce them into a functioning development corporation.

One of the most important accomplishments of Christian’s stay in Rock falls was the creation of the Rock Falls Community Development Corporation.

Christian facilitated the creation of a development organization in Rock Falls and helped the fledgling organization through a visioning process. He then aided the group to more coherently organize itself by becoming a corporation with 501 (c) (3) non-profit status.

One of the challenges the fledgling group faced was a lack of clear vision. Christian partnered with the Illinois Institute of Rural affairs to do a strategic planning process with the group. Out of the planning process some goals emerged, among them was providing the uptown and other community entities with economic development services; attracting new businesses and retaining the existing ones, and to ensure the continued economic growth of Rock Falls. With Christian’s help the organization quickly began to work towards their goals. They filed for non-profit status and purchased a building to house the new corporation. The community showed their support for the new corporation by donating thousands of volunteer hours to these projects.

In addition to establishing the community development corporation, Christian began building links with regional resources. For example, he worked on “Project Teamwork” to help recruit a new distribution center to the area. He also worked on a countywide revitalization program and a statewide economic development program. Through these three programs Christian helped the community of Rock Falls begin to see the importance of regionalism in economic development.

In his 11 months in Rock Falls, Christian added so much to the community that they didn’t want to let him go. In March of 2002, Tscheschlok signed a two-year contract to stay on in Rock Falls as director of the Rock Falls Community Development Corporation.

Christian

Peace Corps Fellows Program · Western Illinois University · 1 University Circle - 503 Currens Hall · Macomb, IL 61455
(800) 526-9943 · (309) 298-2268 · pcf@wiu.edu

The PCF program is a unit of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs.