September 6, 2005
Service at Home and Abroad
By Kathleen Amoia

Most of us have heard of Vista (Volunteers in Service to America), the organization that has put over 120,000 Americans in positions of national service since its inception in 1965. We know it as a home- based version of the Peace Corps, created as part of President John F. Kennedy's demand that we ask not what our country could do for us but what we could do for it. Vista's mission was and remains, to place volunteers in community-based agencies that are seeking effective, long term solutions to problems stemming from rural and urban poverty.

Less well known perhaps is ACDI/VOCA , a 1997 merger of Agricultural Cooperative Development International and Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance. This organization, as configured today, addresses, worldwide, problems related to the development of commercial enterprises, agribusiness systems, community and financial services.

The International Executive Service Corps was founded in 1964 under the auspices of
David Rockefeller. It is a private not for profit organization that uses volunteers from the private sector to assist and promote economic growth around the world. It provides technical assistance in developing production and management skills from the Caribbean to Eurasia.

All of these organizations have been the focus of the expertise and innovative skills that Marty Klein brings to whatever he does. From time with the International Executive Service Corps in 1970, to a stint with the Peace Corps in Tunisia in 1989, Klein has learned to deal with the specific problems at hand, listening to local people and providing technical and management advise suitable to their unique situations.

Marty Klein has been a member of ACDI/VOCA since 1992 and Vista since 1993. Most recently, he has taught poultry farmers to use modern techniques of immunization, production, and marketing in Poland, Estonia and Kazakhstan. As a Vista voluneer, he has been the Community Gardens Coordinator for the Knox Parks Foundation in Hartford. The Foundation establishes and maintains community gardens in low income neighborhoods to help poor people raise food. In this context, he worked to restore solar greenhouses in the city . These greenhouses enabled gardeners to start vegetables from seeds. They also served as a science resource for area schools, providing students with a facility for learning seed germination and gardening skills.

While donating his expertise to these worthy causes, Marty also owns and manages a popular golf range, is a management consultant on finances, personnel, and marketing, and a general contractor for home renovations and building inspection.

Looking at the whole picture and believing that problems are solvable if you engage the people concerned, enables Marty Klein to bring success to these myriad and diverse activities. He believes that "We must be proactive and not reactive. Don't sit there and say it can't be done. And if you try something and it doesn't work, well, try something else."

Bringing the community of Killingworth together to openly debate what it wants and needs for its future, and working on getting those things done, is the only reason Marty Klein is running to be Killingworth's First Selectman.

( For more about the Killingworth Democratic Town Committee visit our website at www.killingworth.dems.info)

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