Volunteering

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Angel Luis Irene, a member of the AARP DC Executive Council, succumbed to kidney cancer on June 10, 2013. From this day forward, loving memories of our dear departed volunteer leader and friend will console us.

Onlookers danced and swayed with the beat of the drum band on the AARP float in the D.C. Capital Pride parade on Saturday, June 8 th. The parade was one of the highlights for AARP participants in DC Pride weekend. Cheering, onlookers stood four-deep along the sidewalks, in the heat, along the 19-block parade route around DuPont Circle, New Hampshire Avenue, and 17th and P streets.

AARP Foundation has established the AARP Foundation Oklahoma Tornado Relief Fund [ www.aarp.org/disasterrelief] to support victims affected by the recent “monster” tornadoes in Oklahoma.

AARP invites DC residents to join the fun of D.C. Capital Pride on Saturday and Sunday, June 8- 9, 2013. Displaying an AARP banner reading, “Celebrating Pride for All Generations,” the AARP team will build upon AARP’s inclusive brand in this diverse community through participation in both the Pride Parade on Saturday, June 8th, and the Pride Festival on Sunday, June 9th.

We are pleased to announce that nominations are now being accepted for the 2013 AARP District of Columbia Andrus Award for Community Service -- AARP’s most prestigious and visible state volunteer award for community service.

Current and former Andrus Award recipients recognized by the District of Columbia State Office toured the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on a warm and sunny Tuesday, April 9th. The tour was led by the monument project architect, Lisa Anders, and Jerry Haan of the National Park Service. The AARP DC State Office sponsored and organized the tour and lunch, which was attended by six Andrus awardees, one past state president, their guests, other AARP DC volunteers and staff.

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.

Thanks to the generosity of District of Columbia residents, AARP DC and the Capital Area Food Bank collected more than five tons - that's 10,000 pounds - of food in the 2012 Drive to End Hunger in DC food drive. That means 13,235 meals can be prepared for and by people at risk of hunger. That kind of food assistance is a lifeline to Ms. Bowman, a DC senior who receives food commodities.