Peace Corps Volunteers to Receive Congressional Gold Medal: Treasury Authorized to Sell Bronze Duplicates

This bill, the Peace Corps Volunteers Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2025, is purely commemorative, authorizing the highest civilian award—the Congressional Gold Medal—to honor all Peace Corps Volunteers. Specifically, the medal recognizes the service of every Volunteer who served between the program’s start in 1961 and the end of 2026. This act serves as Congress’s official recognition that the nearly 250,000 people who committed years to serving abroad in health, education, and development roles deserve a massive, public thank you for promoting U.S. values and understanding in over 140 countries (Sec. 2).

The Highest Honor for Decades of Service

Think of this as a lifetime achievement award for a quarter-million people who chose service over salary and lived alongside the communities they helped. The bill directs that a single gold medal be struck by the Secretary of the Treasury, featuring emblems and inscriptions chosen by the Treasury itself (Sec. 3). Once presented by the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate, the medal will not go home with any single person; instead, it will be placed at the Peace Corps headquarters for display and research, with Congress encouraging the Director to share it for display at other Peace Corps-affiliated locations.

How You Can Get a Piece of History (For a Price)

While the original medal is destined for a museum display, the bill includes a smart provision for funding. The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to create and sell bronze duplicates of the medal (Sec. 4). This isn't a handout; the price of these bronze copies must be set high enough to cover all production costs—including materials, labor, dies, and overhead. For a former Volunteer, or anyone interested in the history of the Corps, this means they will eventually be able to purchase a replica, but the cost will be calculated to ensure taxpayers aren't footing the bill for the duplicates. All revenue generated from these sales goes straight back into the United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund, which is the fund authorized to pay for the initial gold medal production (Sec. 6).

What This Means for Everyday People

For most people, this bill won't change anything about their daily commute or their grocery bill. But for the hundreds of thousands of former Peace Corps Volunteers—many of whom are now your neighbors, coworkers, and community leaders—this is a significant, high-level acknowledgment of the often difficult and dangerous work they performed overseas. The bill recognizes that these Volunteers, who promoted American ideals while living on the same level as the local citizens they served, have been a crucial, if often quiet, arm of American foreign policy for over six decades. By classifying the medals as “national medals” and “numismatic items,” the bill ensures the production process is handled correctly and efficiently through existing Treasury channels (Sec. 5).