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| John (l) with friend Jerry in El Salvador. |
My
name is John Kukankos, the newest member of the Board of Directors. I write
these few words to introduce myself and to set forth what I hope to contribute
to Project Salvador.
I
was raised in the Western suburbs of Chicago where I graduated from Catholic
grammar and high schools. I graduated from the University of Notre Dame
with a BA in English and then received my law degree from Northwestern
University School of Law in Chicago. I have three grown children and have been
married to my wife Peggy for thirty-four years. We currently reside in
Arlington Heights, Illinois, a suburb Northwest of Chicago.
After I completed my first year of law school, I decided to apply to the
Peace Corps and was accepted to a program in Turkey where I spent a year
teaching English as a foreign language. The Peace Corps abruptly ended the Turkish Peace Corps
program a year into my 2-year volunteer service. I managed to
join another Peace Corps program in El Salvador where I spent two years working
in community development. When my two years in El Salvador ended, I returned to
the states to finish law school and have been practicing law in Chicago ever
since. But, I never forgot El Salvador.
As we grow older, I think we have a greater urgency to find fulfillment
and to become involved in something worthwhile. My good friend Jerry and I
would often talk about finding just such an endeavor, and I think we both
always knew that our journey would begin in El Salvador. So, eight years ago, we
decided to go to El Salvador. In El Salvador, Jerry and I looked at a
number of different projects, but the project that most appealed to us involved
education – especially for young women. Since that first trip, Jerry and I have
helped raise funds to assist the Project Salvador scholarship program. It is my hope that during my tenure on
the Board, I can assist in fundraising efforts and continue to develop the
scholarship program.
