Community is Key for Andrus Awardee

Maudie Scott’s view of what constitutes a community—its scars, attributes and potential—started taking shape when, at age 10, she joined her sharecropper parents in harvesting South Carolina tobacco. The field owner’s children, who were white, also gathered leaves during the fall harvest.

“We didn’t go home together, but we worked together,” says Scott, 82, a retired schoolteacher who lives in Amelia Court House, southwest of Richmond. “You had to have some cooperation going on. Otherwise, you weren’t going to make any progress.”

Community, cooperation and progress have been through lines in Scott’s life. This year, she won AARP Virginia’s Andrus Award for Community Service, the group’s top state honor given to an individual 50-plus who makes a significant impact on the community through volunteer work.

Scott’s community service runs the gamut—from chairing the Amelia County Chamber of Commerce’s board to serving as treasurer for the local farmers market to helping AARP advocate for its legislative agenda in Richmond.

“She is a person that makes things happen,” Patricia Jones Scott, of Mechanicsville, said of Scott in nominating her for the award. “She is an organizer, problem solver, and inspiration to all.”

Among other volunteering, Maudie Scott helped persuade state lawmakers to expand the role of nurse practitioners in providing patient care—a critical win amid health care workforce shortages. “It just bothers me to see people struggle,” she says. “They have a right to dignity.”

Joyce Williams, AARP Virginia’s volunteer state president, says Scott’s career was focused on helping children. “Now, in her retirement, she devotes herself to serving the older population,” she says.

—Katti Gray