AARP Georgia Names Alice Bennett as New Associate State Director-Community Outreach

AARP Georgia is pleased to announce the selection of Alice Bennett as an Associate State Director-Community Outreach, positioned to lead AARP Georgia’s Age-Friendly Augusta and Caregiving Education Campaign. Throughout her career, Bennett has shown a continuous commitment to developing strong ties within the community she serves with her extensive background in public policy and community organizing.

Age-Friendly Augusta received their official designation by AARP and the World Health Organization in April and Bennett will be based in Augusta, providing full support to this initiative. The AARP Network of Age-Friendly Communities is an affiliate of the WHO’s Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities, an international effort launched in 2006 to help cities prepare for their own and the world’s growing population of older adults and the parallel trend of urbanization. She will work with AARP volunteers, local elected officials, community members and leaders, faith-based and nonprofit leaders, and governmental officers to execute their action plan.

“The heart of what drives me in this work is my passion to empower individuals,” said Bennett.  “I truly believe that when you help people understand their rights as well as the benefits offered to them in the community, they are better equipped to use that information to personally and politically shift decisions that will affect change in their lives today and going forward.  This is an asset that I believe will be beneficial and instrumental in advancing the vision of AARPGA.”

As AARP is recognized as a national force in helping people live independently at home, and support the family caregivers who so often make this possible, Bennett will also lead caregiving education for AARP Georgia. This initiative will support family caregivers through advocacy, programs, resources, and community and enable care in preferred settings, most often in the home.

Most recently Bennett served as the North Carolina NAACP Public Policy and Legal Redress Coordinator. In this role, she was responsible for monitoring policy changes from the North Carolina General Assembly and collaborated with other organizations across the state to address issues such as predatory pay day lending, economic injustice, affordable housing, equality in education, affordable healthcare for all, equal civil liberties for the LBTQ community, and voter protection and empowerment.

For 10 years, she worked as a community organizer with Helping Empower Local People, where she recruited and facilitated leadership training for volunteer community leaders and empowered them to research and develop multi-faceted action agendas to address common community issues. Her work with this organization impacted diverse groups throughout the city of Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County and across the state of North Carolina.  She led community campaigns to address transportation issues impacting senior citizens, to increasing enrollment in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools after School Program and securing funds for transportation for the students attending, to serving as a project manager in collaborative efforts to promote HIV testing and prevention among African American women and girls.

Bennett earned her Juris Doctor degree from North Carolina Central University School of Law and her Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.