Mac McLean

According to the 2023 AARP Vital Voices survey, 85 percent of Oregonians 45 and older consider being able to pay for their prescription drugs as extremely or very important. That’s up from 73 percent reported in the last Oregon survey, which was conducted in 2020.

Volunteering with AARP Oregon offers community and connection, and the organization is recruiting.

AARP Oregon is focused on providing family caregivers the support they need, including sharing information on state-specific resources, providers and support organizations, as well as caregiving guides in multiple languages.

AARP Oregon is hosting a series of virtual town hall events from mid-June to mid-September to educate voters about topics such as caregiver support, age discrimination, financial security, fraud and aging in place. The state office plans to share the feedback with the candidates running for governor before the Nov. 8 election.

The AARP Oregon Women’s Summit will include a series of virtual events on caregiving, entrepreneurship, finance and other issues. One featured speaker will discuss how starting their own business could be a path toward financial security for those 50-plus.

AARP Oregon is looking to add virtual volunteers so residents from the more far-flung areas of the state can be active within the state chapter.

Sarah Lenz Lock, executive director for the Global Council on Brain Health, will discuss the latest research on environment and brain health as the keynote speaker at AARP Oregon’s 2021 Vital Aging conference in November.

AARP's investment in a Springfield neighborhood is part of recognizing the city's efforts at becoming an age-friendly community. The Willamalane fitness park will be the only one in Oregon to feature FitLot equipment.

Most of the people displaced by the Almeda Drive wildfire were low-income older residents who lived in one of a dozen mobile-home parks along the Oregon 99/I-5 corridor. Efforts to help them have been hampered by a tight job market, limited housing and the restrictions of the pandemic.

AARP Foundation Tax-Aide volunteers will implement sanitary and social distancing precautions, use technology such as video chats and other strategies to keep clients as safe as possible during the pandemic.