Heather Heppner

You work hard and you deserve a secure financial future.

Chicago resident Kathy Schubert was recognized by AARP Illinois with the state’s highest volunteer honor, the 2014 Andrus Award for Community Service. The award was presented to Schubert at a luncheon held in her honor at the American Red Cross in Chicago. AARP also presented a monetary donation to the American Red Cross and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Schubert’s behalf.

If you're approaching 65, you've probably started looking into Medicare coverage. And if you've started looking into Medicare coverage, you've probably found yourself a bit stressed over all of the policies, forms, options and acronyms. We're here to try to simplify things a bit. We've boiled Medicare down to 5 things that you REALLY need to know.

Looking for a way to give back? AARP volunteers from the Oak Lawn area will be accepting donations to benefit Mrs. Jacky's Soldiers - a private effort to provide care packages to soldiers oversees. Since 2003, Mrs. Jacky, an Oak Lawn resident, has been sending care packages on a weekly basis to area residents stationed in Afghanistan. You can help by making a donation at our community event on September 11th!

For those of you who follow AARP Illinois on Facebook, you may have noticed our "Train Your Brain" posts on Fridays. They are some of our most popular posts. People just seem to love brain games! So I thought I would dedicate this week's health care post to a few fun brain facts, compliments of our friends at BrainHQ. Kudos to author MacLean Fitzgerald for providing these facts!

Hi blog readers - it's time for your weekly health care post! This week's edition features some important new information for Medicare beneficiaries who suffer from heart failure. Kudos to Candy Sagon for publishing the original post about this topic on the AARP blog.

Hi blog readers! In this week's edition of " What's Up Springfield?", we're shedding a little light on a topic that you may not be too familiar with. That is, unless you're an older worker who collects Social Security and got laid off from your job. Allow me to explain....

Hi blog readers! It's Heather back with your weekly health care post. The CDC has come out with a new report on hospital infections that serves as a good reminder to all of us about disease prevention. Wash those hands people!

10,000 people sign up for Medicare each day - there's bound to be a few mistakes made. Check out the top 10 Medicare mistakes - and how you can avoid them.

The numbers are in, and they are impressive.....