A Nation Built on Volunteer Service

A message for AARP volunteers from AARP Volunteer President Eric Schneidwind

This nation was built on a foundation of volunteer service: neighbors banding together to clear one another’s fields, deliver their babies, and build their homes. Benjamin Franklin founded America’s first volunteer firehouse in 1736, and George Washington served as a volunteer firefighter for the Alexandria Firehouse in 1744.

Our founder, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, built AARP with volunteer service as its central nervous system. She knew that freely giving one’s talents and time to help others was an exchange that paid equal dividends to giver and recipient. So often, when volunteers are praised for their generosity, we hear them say, “Oh, no! I’m the lucky one. I got far more out of this experience than I gave.”

A Vanderbilt University study verified what our volunteers know in their hearts: volunteer work enhances our well-being in a variety of ways, including happiness, self-esteem, sense of control over life, physical health, and relief from depression.

Our volunteers remain the heart and soul of AARP to this day. Our Board of Directors, our National Officers, our state presidents, and thousands of our program leaders and legislative advocates are all unpaid volunteers. I am one of them, as AARP’s volunteer president!

Today, more than 9 million AARP members are participating in our work as volunteers, donors, and activists. Our volunteers are providing nearly $200 million in economic impact through the Tax-Aide and Driver Safety programs alone!

There’s no doubt about it, we are who we are as an organization because of what volunteers do.
You make an enormous difference in improving individual lives, whole communities, and the entire society. Each of you offers great lessons in generosity and leadership. You are firsthand evidence of the transformative powers of Ethel Percy Andrus’s “army of useful citizens.”

You feed the hungry; fight fraud; tangle with bureaucratic bullies; untangle tax returns; make our roads safer and our utilities more affordable. Local, state, and national victories mount up each year, and we have you, our volunteers, to thank for them.

Anyone who doubts the power of a committed group of AARP volunteers should study the recent collapse of the American Health Care Act. AARP opposed provisions in the bill that threatened to shorten Medicare’s life, exacted an Age Tax on older adults, made harmful cuts in basic coverage, and increased the number of uninsured. It also put at risk millions of children and adults with disabilities, and poor seniors who depend on the Medicaid program to access long-term services and supports and other benefits.

I cannot count how many times friends and family have told me they heard from AARP about what was wrong with the bill, and they thanked us for our involvement. So much of what they heard, and read, and saw came from you. You wrote letters, made phone calls, tweeted, shared Facebook posts, attended rallies, wore red tee-shirts, and carried signs. Some of you even dressed up as squirrels!

You made the difference. Like each of you, Dr. Andrus knew never to underestimate what one person can do, and never to forget the unstoppable power of collective action. You remind us of these truths every day.

AARP could not do what it does without you.
Thank you.