Monday, October 6, 2008
It’s Intergeneration Week
Yesterday marked the beginning of Intergeneration Week, a national event that occurs the first full week of October every year. The mission of the holiday is to connect generations through communication, celebration, and education.
Read more about it at: www.intergenerationday.org.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
“You Will Still Need Me But What Will You Call Me When I’m 64?*
I am a 58 year old baby boomer, and am quite comfortable with that moniker. I have a gazillion peers, and we are very special. “Yes, in fact, the world does evolve around us.”
My colleague, born just a few years ahead of the b-gen, is an active senior. She chooses to work part time. “Now that I’ve retired, I can work for the fun of it.”
Another 65+ associate teaches at a local university. She enjoys this special time of life. “Geezerhood is mighty under-rated!” she announced recently.
My neighbor is 53. She is a skilled ICU nurse and wants to pick up an extra shift now and then. So I helped her with her resume. “Erase all those graduation dates,” I advised. She is a mature worker and afraid of age discrimination.
My brother retired five years ago when he was 59. He spends lots of time fishing. I call him a retiree, but he calls me jealous “It’s tough having all this free time on my hands.”
By contrast, my oldest sister will soon turn 70, and still works full time. She’s an older adult with an attitude. “I’d like to kill my brother.” Hey, Pat, I’m with you.
Seriously, the nation must take a hard look at our workplace practices and retirement policies. Current and future generations may well work productively until age 70, 80, even 90.
We can’t all go fishing when we turn 65. And frankly the US would be hard pressed if we did.
*Title borrowed from the song: When I’m 64: The Beatles
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Non-Profits: Tapping into the Boomer Generation
My father never retired–he worked until he died at the young age of 73. Dad didn’t know how he would fill idle time, so he kept working because it was all he knew.
If Dad were around today, I would reach out to him to manage volunteers at Generations Incorporated. He was a great “people person”, with solid management skills and tremendous pride in his work. He owned a successful grocery store in our town, and he inspired and motivated his employees to get results every day.
Cash-strapped non-profit organizations could truly benefit by tapping into the growing numbers of retired and semi-retired persons who live in our communities. They can serve as volunteers to provide direct services and they can also serve in leadership capacities. Those who provide service can be most effective when they are well-supported, have clear expectations, good coordination, and feel appreciated. Often a busy organization doesn’t have the staff capacity to provide this kind of support. What a great job for a volunteer!
Those who serve in leadership capacities (such as fundraising, marketing, management of volunteers, etc.) will need training in order to transfer the competencies that they have used in previous work. The potential return on investment for this kind of training could be huge.
Imagine the value added to communities if the non-profit sector taps into this generation. Our plan for expansion over the next four years will rely on our ability to attract this talent. It is key to our sustainability.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Who says older adults don’t know anything about blogs?
Welcome to the blogsite of Generations Incorporated. We are a leading intergenerational literacy organization in Boston, MA, mobilizing older adults (ages 55+) to serve as mentors and literacy tutors to children who are struggling to read at grade level.
For 15 years we have united older adults and youth in service to strengthen individuals and communities. This year marks our first venture into blogging, and we hope that it becomes a space for connecting older adults with mentoring resources, providing insight into our literacy and mentoring programs, and giving a better look at what’s going on in each of our 19 partner schools and after-school sites.
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“Blog” is derived from the ancient “web log” meaning an online journal. According to Wikipedia, the blogging phenomena began slowly in 1991 and in the late nineties rapidly gained in popularity: the blogging site, Xanga, launched in 1996, had only 100 diaries by 1997, but over 20 million as of December 2005. Well, sign me up! Because who says older adults don’t know anything about blogging?
