Connie Ness was in grade school in Fargo, North Dakota, when John F. Kennedy started the Peace Corps. The idea of helping people while living an adventure in a different land stuck with her through high school and college, where she earned a degree in English, and continued while working several marketing jobs in corporate America. In 1994, at age 45, she joined the Peace Corps and worked as a business consultant in a pueblo of 2,000 in the interior of Uruguay. After her service, she took her own advice and went into business for herself as a freelance writer. She wrote marketing, sales, and promotional materials for business. When the pandemic put a stop to life as usual, she took advantage of the downtime to finally write the book about her Peace Corps experience—25 years after leaving Uruguay. Now she works as a certified SOAR specialist, a program designed to help eligible people who are homeless get Social Security disability benefits.
