BOOMER UPDATE

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Older Workers Bring New Purpose to Volunteer Work

Mar 5

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHICAGO (AP) — Stuffing envelopes is out and meaningful work experience is in for a new generation of volunteers.

Spurred by the tight job market or often career-change aspirations, older workers with specific goals for donating their time are remaking the face of volunteerism. Call it giving back with an agenda.

Executives at nonprofit organizations around the country testify to the new worker demands, many of them from baby boomers used to pushing for what they want. The execs are hardly complaining — volunteerism is on the rise and it’s the older population that’s behind it.
just 0.7 percent among younger volunteers.
nytimes.com

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Boomers and low-cost fulfilment

Feb 24

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Can’t get no satisfaction? You might want to look within

BY MARTHA WORBOY, FOR CANWEST NEWS SERVICE

Jane Eccles has found the good life.

But it’s not one filled with exotic trips, wining and dining at five star locales or wearing the latest in designer fashion.

The 60-year old retired high school art teacher has found her oasis at her home in Bowmanville, Ont., where she has converted part of her house into a painting studio.

Eccles always wanted to paint full time, but says financial constraints when she was younger, and a busy family life led her to a path as a “career teacher.”

But now, retired seven years and her two sons fully grown, Eccles has time to pursue her dream. “Painting gives me peace of mind. It’s totally pleasurable — it’s an acknowledgment of who I am,” she says.
montrealgazette.com

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Baby boomers turn retirement into a time for volunteering

Jan 12

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By LISA SANG

The desire to give back is what motivates many baby boomers.

Nearly 40 percent of Americans increased their volunteering when they retired, according to the AARP’s September 2008 “More to Give” report, a study of civic engagement among what it terms “Baby Boomers, the Silent Generation and the Greatest Generation.”

Forty-one percent, almost 45 million Americans, indicated they were likely to increase the amount they will volunteer within the next five years.

Volunteering is about “keeping in check the sense of entitlement one might feel if one didn’t give back to other people,” says Rebecca Gold, 45, of Mountain Lakes, who volunteers with United Jewish Communities in Whippany, a center for Jewish philanthropy.
dailyrecord.com

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Defining the decade: Boomers move on

Dec 30

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By DONNA NEBENZAH, Freelance

As I write this, the sun streams in my study window and I glimpse the snow-crusted trees in my neighbour’s yard. I ignore my messy desk – much like it was when I worked full time – concentrating on my writing, warmed by my steaming cup of (free) latte. I am enclosed in a creative silence: no one is chatting on the phone near me, there is no clatter of computer keyboards.

But it’s not all quiet. On the sidewalk below my home office, I hear the crunch of children’s boots as a group of little ones from the nearby daycare centre head to the park. I’m interrupted to chat with the mailman (he’s into yoga) or answer the phone.

I might take a break, run a few errands or saunter up the street to the local tea room for a cuppa with the owner, a re-framed boomer like me, theatre teacher turned baker and restaurateur. I lunch out maybe once a week, a happy change for my wallet from the days when I ate out four times weekly and bought at least one designer coffee a day.
montrealgazette.com

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