This year, AARP Utah's annual Volunteer Summit highlighted local community connections, the importance of our volunteers, and a glimpse at what's to come in 2025.
AARP Utah staff and volunteers joined forces for AARP’s National Day of Service, an annual event dedicated to community service projects aimed at improving lives. AARP’s National Day of Service initiatives have a significant impact on communities across the country.
November marks National Family Caregivers Month, a time to recognize the more than 336,000 family caregivers in Utah who help older parents, spouses, and other loved ones live independently at home, where they want to be. The unpaid care they provide through managing medications, cooking meals, driving to appointments, performing complex medicals tasks and more is valued at $4.15 billion in Utah alone.
AARP Utah was pleased to bestow the 2015 Andrus Award for Community Service to Carol Jenson. Carol is a dedicated, tireless volunteer with the Utah Food Bank, delivering food boxes to seniors every week. Though the Food Bank only asks volunteers to deliver to a maximum of three people, Carol serves 21. These people not only anticipate her arrival with food to supplement their diets but the social interaction with the pleasant and caring person who brightens up their lives. One the rare occasions when she is unable to make it, Carol makes sure that food is delivered to the people who depend on it. She spent at least 250 hours at the Food Bank last year and was honored as their Volunteer of the Year in 2014.