Peace Corps Merit Badges is a service project by Peace Corps Volunteers serving around the world. The founders Travis Hellstrom, an Eagle Scout, and Ridge Zackary thought it would be fun to combine the idea of merit badges with the unique and amazing experiences that Peace Corps Volunteers go through during their service. The more they talked about it with their Peace Corps friends the more they thought it was an idea that should finally come to fruition. After months of preparation and review, involving dozens of PCVs, RPCVs, and Peace Corps staff from around the world, the project launched publicly in November of 2009.

The idea of merit badges is known throughout the world primarily by the long history of the Scouting movement which began with Sir Baden Powell in 1907 and expanded to the United States in 1910. They are based on military recognition for skills and honors and have inspired millions of young people around the world for over a century. Our project builds on that momentum to include the Peace Corps experience, which shares many of the values of Scouting: culture, heritage, citizenship in the community, nation and world to name a few. Our badges measure approximately 2 inches, slightly larger than today's Boy Scout merit badges at 1.5 inches. Also our badges, being handmade, resemble some of the earlier merit badges in the first fifty years of Scouting.