Western Illinois University Grad Uses Peace Corps Fellowship to Benefit Illinois Communities
Brittany Sunderman’s story began with building bridges and, through Western Illinois University, she is now building bridges in an Illinois community.
Sunderman, who graduated from WIU with a Master of Arts in Community and Economic Development in 2023, started her path working for a construction company in Seattle, WA. She traveled to Nicaragua on a project to build a bridge and met Peace Corps Volunteers while on her trip. She had applied to the Peace Corps previously, but was inspired to do so once again. This time her application was accepted and she traveled to Costa Rica to specialize in Community and Economic Development in February 2018.
She lived on a coffee farm in Costa Rica, near the border of Panama. One of Sunderman’s biggest projects was working with her host mom’s quilting business. Sunderman found a grant to purchase new machines and other technology to get her host mom’s business more modernized. Toward the end of her stay in Costa Rica, Sunderman worked with a business that builds brick ovens for peace corps sites. Her team helped build the oven and taught classes on business management. Now it is a fully-functioning pizzeria.
Sunderman was forced to return to the United States when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but she wanted to continue her outreach work. That’s when she looked into Peace Corps fellowship programs and discovered WIU.
“I loved the Community and Economic Development opportunities at Western,” Sunderman said. “Plus the price was amazing. They had very small class sizes and it was set up like the Peace Corps, which I liked.”
Sunderman said she spent the first year of the program working part-time within the City of Macomb. The feeling of being able to integrate herself into the community was very rewarding.
“Western is unique in that it’s a small town with a bigger feel,” Sunderman said. “You can do so many things you wouldn’t be able to do in a bigger city. I worked in the Community and Economic Development department in Macomb. I wouldn’t have been able to do that in Seattle. WIU gives you that community feel.”
The second year of the program reminded Sunderman of her work in the Peace Corps. She received an assignment to work with the Chamber of Commerce in Effingham, IL. When her year was wrapping up in Effingham, she had a message from a friend who owned the local coffeeshop, Joe Sippers.
“I was literally in the middle of packing up and she said ‘you could just stay here,'” Sunderman said. “She had never had a manager before and she thought it would be good for me and for the town. I decided to stay and it’s been the greatest thing for me.”
Sunderman encourages any students who are looking for a way to get involved in their community and get a great education to look at WIU.
“WIU is so cozy,” Sunderman said. “It’s some of the best professors I’ve had in my whole life and the class sizes are small. It’s all about the small community feel within the town and the university.”
For more information on the program, visit wiu.edu/peace_corps/fellows.
