Volunteering

The first of several AARP Arkansas Regional Volunteer Briefings planned for this year will be held Friday, March 1, in Conway.

Boise, Idaho - Tom Trail is a former Idaho State Representative and currently volunteers on AARP Idaho’s Executive Council. This week he received the Legislator of the Year award from the Human Society of the United States.

AARP Alabama has asked the Public Service Commission (PSC) to formally review the rates charged by Mobile Gas, Alabama Gas and Alabama Power. The rates have not been formally reviewed since they were set in the 1980s and a formal review could result in an adjustment to rates and significantly reduce utility bills.

Boise, Idaho – After more than two hours of debate, the Senate Health and Welfare Committee approved a bill (SB1053) changing the way SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits are distributed in Idaho. The vote was 6-3 and the bill will now head to the Senate floor for a full vote with a do-pass recommendation. A similar bill failed to get out of the same committee last year.

Two of the most famous events of the civil rights movement happened in places I have called home. The Freedom Riders, who sat in at “lunch counters” and helped integrate public buses, are legendary in Mississippi, where I spent my childhood and graduated college. And in Illinois, where I was born, the Chicago Freedom Movement called national attention to the plight of Americans forced to live in slum tenements. In both cases, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black history icon I most admire, brought leadership, hope and inspiration to people by leading marches and by expressing their dreams with riveting oratory. The day we lost Dr. King is scorched in my memory; the south side of Chicago, where I lived at the time, seemed to implode around me. At eight-years-old, I can remember the violence and the anger, but my most poignant memory is the grief. I watched my young mother sobbing. She was inconsolable. In our grief, we thought Dr. King's dreams died on April 4th, 1968.

AARP Chapter 1270 of Wayne County is celebrating their 40th Anniversary this month! Chapter 1270, located in Piedmont, Missouri, is an active and vibrant organization that exemplifiesthe AARP Chapter slogan, 'To serve, not to be served'. Chapter 1270 participates in AARP's annual Day of Service, hosts educational programs for the community on health and fitness, and will sponsor a forum on brain health in 2013. Congratulations to Chapter 1270 for 40 years of community service!

When Kelly Clark was tapped to take an interim leadership role at AARP’s national office in the fall, we looked to our AARP neighbors to the south and invited Mike Olender of AARP New York to step in to lend a hand. As his experience the last six months was very positive, we thought you’d like to hear directly from him -- what he thinks of New Hampshire and how he and his family fared. Here goes:

Hungry in the West End addresses senior hunger in Providence's West End community -- an area of hard-core poverty burdened further by the recession. This series attempts to put a face on the problem of senior hunger in the West End and throughout America, and to give voice to those who are responding to the challenge of feeding the hungry. This is concluding Part 8 of the series. Start here to begin with Part 1.

By Hayley Hervieux, AARP

Frankfort Week in Review: February 15, 2013