Category Archives: Community Service

Congratulations Purpose Prize Winners!

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Congratulations to the 2013 Purpose Prize Winners! The seven inspirational purpose prize winners this year each demonstrate how they use their wisdom and experience to make a difference in the lives of others. Health, veteran support, and parenting behind bars are some of passions of these inspirational elders. They are role models for us all.

Marika and Howard Stone, founders of 2Young2Retire, are past winners of the Purpose Prize. We appreciate the service of all of the purpose prize winners and the many other elders who are Too Young To Retire® and are focused on improving their communities and the world. For more information on this year’s winners, visit: http://www.encore.org/prize/meet-2013-purpose-prize

Sweating the Big Stuff

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Sound familiar?  You are (blissfully) unaware of the aging process until one morning, you are standing at the bathroom mirror brushing your teeth as usual, and whoa! this strange person stares back at you.  Your eyes may be as sharp as ever, the expression in them the same, but your features seem to be slouching in a Southerly direction.  (French women seem to enjoy special dispensation from these facts of life.)

For some folks, women mostly but not exclusively, this new old face is enough to send ripples of panic through the whole body.  Before you know it, you’re Googling anti-wrinkle creams, Botox treatments, and/or face lifts.  (Yes, I admit I went as far as to check out the non-surgical options, see The Perricone Prescription.  The good news: it is based on an anti-inflammatory diet and boosts one’s general health and well-being.)   If you are past your fifth decade, you may personally know women (and maybe a few men) of a certain age who have submitted their tissues to the surgeon’s knife.  While I respect the right to make this choice, ‘nip-and-tuck’  isn’t in my future.

Of course, I’m not in the entertainment business where my wrinkles could directly affect my livelihood.  And I don’t plan to run for political office, ditto.  If Sarah Palin looked like Golda Meir, goes one recent joke, would we even be having this conversation?  The truth is, whatever we do cosmetically, we will all end up looking something like Golda Meir (or Mike Wallace) if we’re lucky enough to live that long.   But honestly, would you choose youth and beauty over a reputation for doing good work; passionate support of worthwhile causes; spreading joy; being trustworthy; being a good parent/grandparent/friend or any number of other qualities you value?

In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a baby is born old and grows younger each year until he ceases to exist.  The tragedy was that he was moving through life in the opposite direction from everyone else, including the love of his life.  It wasn’t so much an compelling story-into-film as a cautionary tale.   In the world of the imagination, maybe we can fool Mother Nature.  In real life, not so much.  The aging face that looks back at you by dawn’s early light is a reminder that it’s time.  Time to cultivate a sense of self deeper than your skin.  If we — especially we women, weren’t so caught up in how the world sees and judges us (our faces, our clothes, our homes), we might be putting more attention on things like, let’s see, the epidemic of violence against women; the threats to our basic rights to clean water, air, education, health care; what kind of world we appear to be leaving to our grandchildren.  We could be sweating the Big Stuff.

V-Day: A Movement to End Violence Against Women and Girls

The Center for Public Integrity

Oh, I’m Just a Volunteer …

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Every time I hear someone say “I’m just a volunteer,” I feel like pulling that person aside for a pep talk.  Like ‘just a housewife’ which once kept women in their so-called place, this phrase speaks of self-sacrifice and low status.  It has no place in the reality of what community service is and could become in the 21st century.  One fact: U.S. Government data for 2008 show that 61.8 million Americans or 26.4 percent of the adult population contributed 8 billion hours of volunteer service worth $162 billion*.  Much harder to calculate is the impact of community service on civic life, except when one tries to imagine what life would be like without the hundreds of nonprofit organizations, foundations, faith-based charities, service clubs, and the PTA.

Possibly someone who calls herself  just a volunteer hasn’t found a fit between her skills and an organization that knows how to put them to good use.  Sure, we all gladly stuff envelopes, work the phones and canvass during a campaign, but if you regularly donate your time, you need — perhaps even more than people on the payroll – a clear sense of mission and how your efforts are helping accomplish it.  Research shows that the real challenge is retaining volunteers, one-third of whom quit after the first year.  If you are one of these folks, think again.  Whatever you have to bring to the table, there is the right match for you, and a world that badly needs your time and care.

There is much evidence that suggests we are hardwired for altruism.  Good Samaritans of all ages, shapes and sizes turn up all the time.  People risk their own lives to save someone else’s.  Why?  Because, as people committed to community service soon discover, it feels good to give.  Brian Mullaney, co-founder of Smile Train, puts it this way: “The most selfish thing you can do is to help other people.”  Children do it.  Busy people do it.  Even those of modest means and education do it.

I think of the story our UU minister told last Sunday.  On the way home from a wedding ceremony in rural New Jersey, her car broke down.  It was getting dark as she got out, dressed in high heels and long minister’s robe.  She stood by the highway, trying to flag down some help.  Many cars passed without slowing down.  Finally, an old van packed with a family of migrant workers stopped.  They made room for her and drove her to the nearest gas station and phone, then waited until they knew help was on its way.  “They were tired and probably hungry,” she said, “but they waited.”

I think of our eight year old granddaughter who raised $100 all by herself for the children of Haiti.  And the Cub Scout troupe our grandsons belong to, that does regular beach cleanup.  And I think of the Purpose Prize community, “individuals over age 60 who are defying societal expectations by channeling their creativity and talent to address critical social problems at the local, regional, or national level” at a time when many of their peers consider their work and their best years behind them.

Community service is contagious when we take pride in what we do.  And we should, no matter how lowly the task may seem.  Serving helps you connect with other people; it encourages you to learn things you didn’t know, even about your own capacities; you feel a part of something bigger; you feel needed, depended upon, valuable. Sometimes it opens doors to a new career, friends, a mate.  So doing the right thing by others is ‘selfish’ because, as all the wisdom traditions teach, we are one.  The people who really need a pep talk – or something stronger – are the ones who saw a woman stuck beside her car on a highway, and just kept right on driving.

More resources:

AARP Create the Good

Idealist

The Purpose Prize

Volunteering in America

Volunteer Match

*Using Independent Sector’s 2008 estimate of the dollar value of a volunteer hour ($20.25).

Sometimes All It Takes is a Handshake …

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…to show appreciation and common humanity.  That is the core message of this heartfelt and often heart-wrenching  documentary, The Way We Get By, about the Maine Troop Greeters, a group of elderly residents of Bangor, Maine, who meet troops on their return from active duty in Iraq, offering smiles, handshakes and a cellphone to make free calls to family, or send them off with encouragement and pride.

When Joan, Bill and Jerry aren’t volunteering their services at the Bangor International Airport in all weather and at all hours, they have plenty of health and other issues on their respective plates.  Joan Gaudet, 75, mother of the film’s director and a grandmother of eight, takes 13 medications a day and worries about daughter Amy’s assignment to Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot.  She wonders aloud how Americans would feel about outsiders coming here and telling us how to live.  World War II Veteran Bill Knight, the eldest at 87, has seen his life after the death of his wife become overwhelmed by debt, a battle with cancer, and a house full of garbage, clutter and cats.  Yet he faces his own demise with equanimity and his speech is often sprinkled with bon mot: “Leave a car outside and it’ll rust out faster than you can wear it out…just like people.”  Meanwhile 74-year-old Jerry Mundy, wrestles with the death of his son and heart disease, while missing no opportunity to “put a smile on each soldier’s face.”

While The Way We Get By is never overtly critical of American policy, it never finches from the reality of extreme sacrifice as when new arrivals scan a wall for names and photos of their fallen comrades.

The lives of Joan, Bill and Jerry and their passion for this work at ages when many of their peers have decided to sit out the rest of their days, is deeply moving.  Now in wide circulation, this powerful film about the healing power of human connection and how to live each day as if it could be your last, is a must.  Carry a packet of tissues.

50+? The Peace Corps Wants You

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“Do people tell you you`re over the hill? … What if you were?  Over the hill, over a stream and over an ocean.  To another continent.  Thousands of miles from your own. Where elders are looked to as leaders …”

If you’re over 50 and have ever been attracted to becoming a Peace Corps volunteer, this advertising message should alert you to the fact that the Peace Corps is recruiting older adults, for their maturity, life and business experience, and transferable skills.  Of the approximately 7,800 volunteers around the world, people 50 and older make up 5%, or fewer than 400.  Host nations are asking for volunteers who can offer real-world experience in technical fields, business development, agribusiness or teaching, rather than young adults right out of college, says Rosie Mauk, the Peace Corps’ associate director of volunteer recruitment and selection.  Applications among older Americans, many of whom have lost jobs in last year’s economic downturn, are on the rise.

2young2retire facilitator and Peace Corps volunteer, Patrice Koerper, who recently returned from an assignment in Macedonia, describes it as the “most amazing, rewarding adventure of my life,”  and the Peace Corps itself as the best organization she has ever been associated with.  A seasoned public relations professional with a “great job,” Patrice was looking for a change of direction.  She had three personal goals for her next endeavor:  first, she wanted “to see the faces of the people I was helping”; second, she wanted to get to know more people; and third, she wanted to live in Eastern Europe from where her family immigrated generations ago.  Service with the Peace Corps in Macedonia met all three.

In 2006, while exploring new possibilities for work and life, she took the training to become a certified 2young2retire facilitator.  She also found herself drawn to the Peace Corps and decided to apply.  After a six-month application process which she found both “laborious and scary,” she felt the Peace Corps knew more about her than anyone.  If you’re an older volunteer, you should expect that because there is so much more to know.

Based on an assessment of your skills and experience, the Peace Corps decides what kind of work you will take on.   Once you have accepted an assignment – you are offered up to three locations – you receive language and other training to prepare you for life in your host country.  The mission of the Peace Corps is captured in these three goals:

  1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
  2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
  3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

The Three Goals, plus the commitment to a 27-month duration of service, tend to screen out all but the most serious applicants.  Peace Corps volunteer are supplied with a round trip ticket, housing allowance and a stipend to cover food, transportation and incidentals.  For Patrice this came to $220 a month, or roughly equivalent to 250 Euros, an average salary in Macedonia.  The point is, volunteers must live like the locals.  She received full medical coverage during her service and affordable health insurance for up to 18 months following service.   Older volunteers who draw Social Security and/or other pension benefits, may accumulate significant savings while they are away from home.  All returning Peace Corps volunteers are awarded just over $6,000 toward a smooth transition to life back home, and Patrice notes, they are eligible for Response Corps, short-term, high-impact assignments that typically range from three months to a year, at the request of a country.

Eager to begin her new assignment, Patrice arrived in Macedonia and spent the first six months “doing nothing.  Patience is the Number One way to survive,” she notes.  Macedonia, which became independent from Yugoslavia in 1991, is in the process of reinventing itself and its economy.  She was assigned to work with a government agency and eventually found herself doing workshops on change.  At first, people tended to view volunteers with suspicion, perhaps because there has been no formal tradition of volunteering.  She grew comfortable with the experience of “living minute to minute.” The last seven months of her service in Macedonia proved to be the most fruitful and rewarding.   “I realized I was in the business of building hope and trust,” Patrice says.  She kept the motto of Macedonian native, Mother Theresa, in mind: “Do small things with great love.”

Here are links about the Peace Corps, including recent budgetary debate and how to go about applying:

Recruiting the 50+
Budget Debates, Future Prospects
From Job Loss to Peace Corps
About Peace Corps
Forum for Volunteers
How to Apply


Eric Utne’s New Idea

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Eric Utne, founder of the Utne Reader and creator of the Salon movement in the 1990s — I was a member of one in New Jersey — has come up with an idea that blends the salon approach with his belief that “every city, town, and village in the world needs its own coulcil of elders.”  If the word ‘elder’ gives you the willies, Utne is out to change your mind.  He aims to “redeem the word elder — an archetypal social type, essential to any vibrant, sustainable community,” and we’re with him 100%.  In these pages, we reported the founding of The Elders which includes Nobel Peace Prize winners Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Muhammad Yunus.  Utne’s Community Earth Councils brings this idea home.  It will connect elders (50+) with those 16-18 of age to address global social and enviornmental challenges at the local level.  It’s an intergenerational initiative that is long overdue.

Old-Fashioned Community Building

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Are online communities replacing real ones?  Have you noticed that most people are gazing into a hand-held device rather than making eye contact? Have you observed how many people are plugged into their private world of music? Do you have to pull your grandkids away from their Wii or other video game to play Monopoly or toss a ball around? Are you using email to 1. send birthday greetings (guilty!), 2. offer sympathy, 3. get something off your chest (ouch)?

I couldn’t live without the Internet and my cell phone but the way we are today makes me nostalgic for the years I lived in Hoboken, NJ, a true walking town where every errand could lead to a conversation, a collaboration, a dinner invitation or even (so I heard) a proposal of marriage. On a fine summer evening, we would sit on our stoop on 11th Street and chat with neighbors on theirs, or with passersby. A neighbor and I planted flowers in the divider down the middle of our street one summer, and when I go back there, it still makes me feel really happy. I felt very safe living there, knowing a lot of my neighbors, the restaurant owners, the local merchants. Building community the old-fashioned way is still possible. Here are a few ideas on how to get started.

Turn off your TV and/or computer. Leave your house. Look up when you are walking. Know your neighbor. Sit on your stoop. Greet people. Plant flowers. Use your library. Play together. Help a lost dog. Share what you have. Buy from local merchants. Take children to the park. Garden together. Read stories aloud. Dance in the street. Talk to the mail carrier. Listen to the birds. Put up a swing. Help carry something heavy. Donate what you are not using. Have potlucks. Support neighborhood schools. Fix it even if you didn’t break it. Ask a question. Open your shades. Ask for help when you need it. Hand write a thank you note. Pick up litter. Hire young people for odd jobs. Turn up the music. Turn down the music. Organize a block party. Start a tradition. Share your skills. Bake extra and share. Honor elders. Barter for your goods. Volunteer your time. Take back the night. Sing together. Learn from new and uncomfortable angles. Listen before you react to anger. Mediate a conflict. Seek to understand.

(Thanks to Mary Barknecht, a Voluntary Simplicity workshop leader based in New York City, for the tips.)

Purpose-Driven Travel

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If you’ve been there, done that, perhaps you are ready for a different kind of travel experience, one where you quit being a tourist and actually contribute something to the people and places you are visiting. Some folks have found an outlet lecturing and teaching on cruise ships in exchange for the voyage, which could be a good way to get your feet wet, so to speak. But if you think cultural immersion is more your speed, consider these examples.

Susan and David Cooper, 60-something world travelers, recently spent a week in Spain, helping a motivated group of business people hone their conversational English skills with Pueblo Ingles. One week of accommodations and food (both rated excellent) in exchange for their services; they paid their own airfare. Barcelona or Madrid, anyone?

Global Volunteers is an organization that puts the skills of experienced professionals to use in the developing world in what it calls a volunteer vacation abroad. Goals are similar to those of the Peace Corps: an interchange of ideas and cultures that enable volunteers and their hosts to learn from one another, but for shorter stays. World travel enthusiasts Herbert and Phyllis Goldberg are active Global Volunteers. Their first assignment took them to Vietnam for three weeks, where they “taught conversational English, advised in the hospital and medical clinics (Herb is a former plastic surgeon, Phyllis, a marriage and family therapist), taught medical and psychological policy and the American way of life.”

Your English language skills could also get you a job abroad for a longer period of time. The Oxford Seminars TESOL/TESL Teacher Training Certification Course offers a 60-hour in-class course. Graduates receive an internationally-recognized certificate and six months of free job placement assistance through its teacher placement department.

Where in the world would you like to teach? asks World Teach, a non-profit, non-governmental organization founded by a group of Harvard students in 1986. World Teach “provides opportunities for individuals to make a meaningful contribution to international education by living and working as volunteer teachers in developing countries.”

Good News Hunger

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How often does a good news rise to the top of the list? Well, today it did in New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof’s wonderful piece on Beatrice Biira, for whom the gift of a goat through Heifer International was the transforming event of her life. The fact that the column was #1 on the most emailed list was an indication of how much we hunger for good news in a time when it is in short supply. This is not only that rare occurrence, but a reminder of how relatively easy it is to make a huge difference in the life of someone who is heading into the oblivion of “one more illiterate African woman, another of the continent’s squandered human resources.”

At 2young2retire, we are often asked for ideas about community service by members of our 50 and older audience. The both good and bad news is: there are more social problems crying out for our help than there are people looking for them. Mature volunteers are in great demand for their life experience and dedication. Just look around your own community, look at the schools, see where and how the other half lives. And if you need a place to sift through the available volunteer opportunities, here are two. Idealist and Volunteer Match.

In the meantime, when you next need a gift for someone who has everything — and that is an awful lot of us in this country — consult the Heifer catalog. As little as $20 can send chicks to a family in Africa or Asia. You get a beautiful card to send to your friend or family member, along with your own message to appreciate the abundance in which many of us live by a happy accident of birth. Make you own good news; satisfy that hunger for uplift.