TEMPLE — A new year, a new adventure is Janine Winn’s plan for 2017.

On March 14, Winn, 68, will leave for three months of training before spending two years in Ukraine as a Peace Corps volunteer.

“It is time to stop climbing ladders for other people,” she said of her business, Wildflower Walls, a paint and papering service.

This is not the first time Winn has thought about joining the Peace Corps. She learned about it in high school but her parents did not agree with her desire to join, she said. Then she got involved with other things — a  husband and children. It was just never the right time, she said.

A few years ago, she started thinking about retirement and began to organize her life in a five-year plan. She had had a fantastic party for her 50th birthday and decided she could not do that again for her 70th. But she wanted a special way to commemorate it.

“Joining the Peace Corps seemed like a great idea,” she said.

Winn applied on April 7 — her 68th birthday — and she was accepted. Her Peace Corps enlistment will entail three months of training in the U.S., followed by 24 months in Ukraine, where she’ll celebrate her 70th birthday. 

“I’ll be back in time to apply to work on the 2020 census,” she said.

Winn has had little opportunity to travel, and joining the Peace Corps seemed like a good way to learn what another part of the world is like, she said.

The Peace Corps’ three-fold mission is to be helpful and assist with projects in other parts of the world, promote volunteer understanding of other cultures and let others get to know more about Americans, she said.

When Winn applied, she said she would go anywhere. Eastern Europe was not on her mind as a possibility, so her assignment came as a surprise. Though Ukraine is not a developing nation, it has a long history of its communities not coming together to help out with projects — the government always did it, she said. The country came under other powers such as Russia and the Soviet Union.

She will serve as an adviser to a non-government entity, or what we call nonprofits, she said. Whether that will be working with an organization similar to our Children’s Task Force, Sexual Assault Crisis Center or the Healthy Community Coalition, she does not yet know.

With her background as a volunteer as then director of Sexual Assault Victims Emergency Services for more than 20 years, the role seems appropriate for Winn, as helping people is part of who she is.

The service grew from a hotline to an organization that provides needed services and tries to engage the community, she said.

“We learned to talk with men about the subject without making them defensive and present our concerns in a way that engaged them,” she said. 

In 2001, a downturn in the economy meant the focus of her position centered on funding rather than providing services.

She decided she had done it long enough.

“But, we did a lot of good work,” she said.

Winn hopes to be placed in a rural area of Ukraine, where she can learn more about small-animal farming. She also would not mind living with a family.

Winn has started learning the new language.

“If a volunteer is not able to begin to conquer it within the three months (of) training, they will send you home,” she said.

Although she feels it is a good time to try a new venture, joining the Peace Corps feels “like stepping off a cliff,” she said.

Winn has been preparing to step outside of her life for a while, which meant finding a house sitter, a home for her dog and parting with her chickens and horse. She’ll also need to find others to fill her shoes while she’s gone.

A replacement has been found to fill her position as member and treasurer of the Western Maine Blacksmith Association. A new president for the Temple Historical Society will take her place, she said. A couple of parents are taking on her role as leader of Giddy-Up and Go 4-H Horse Club.

Winn helped work on the first part of the town’s comprehensive plan, which is now ready to go to voters at the town meeting in March, she said.

For 10 years, Winn has captured life in Temple for her column in the Franklin Journal. Taryn Canney is helping with the column now, she said.

She has also contacted her 11-year-old grandson’s school in Machias with plans to connect with his class as part of her Peace Corps assignment.

Winn was born in Farmington but moved to New Jersey when she was 3 years old. She always identified herself as a Mainer, she said. She came back at age 21, married and lived in the Sugarloaf area.

In 1979, she came to Farmington, finished school at the University of Maine at Farmington and bought a house in Temple in 1983.

After she is finished with her Peace Corps assignment in Ukraine, she hopes to farm and raise small animals on her property in Temple.

abryant@sunmediagroup.net 

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