Transforming Lives in 2017
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TRANSFORMING LIVES IN 2017 2017 ANNUAL REPORT CONNECTING OLDER ADULTS WITH OPPORTUNITY Volunteers supported Meals packed by volunteers Hours invested by our programs for local communities in Experience Corps Memphis, Denver, the volunteers to help Twin Cities, Washington, D.C., 31,627 students improve and South Florida to end their reading skills senior hunger Taxpayers received free $222,032,526 Earned Hours of community tax preparation services Income Tax Credits service contributed by from more than 34,000 received by taxpayers AARP Foundation AARP Foundation helped by AARP SCSEP participants Tax-Aide volunteers Foundation Tax-Aide People received Delivered across local People assessed their guidance through the communities in Texas, risk of isolation at BACK TO WORK 50+ Florida, the U.S. Virgin Connect2Affect.org Contact Center Islands and Puerto Rico to provide hurricane relief to older adults in need. 3 You learn a lot about how looking for a job works these days. HOW LISA GOT HER (JOB) GROOVE BACK “Some days I wanted to quit, but I didn’t stop. You have to keep going.” At 60 also served more than 14,000 people years old, Lisa Edmond was laid off by through the BTW50+ Contact Center with the company she’d served for 42 years. 7 Smart Strategies Guides and referrals Disheartened and feeling hopeless, and to local resources. faced with a very different job market from Our Senior Community Service the one she remembered, she signed up for Employment Program (SCSEP) provides BACK TO WORK 50+. After that, everything economic opportunities by matching low- changed. At a recruiting event, both income, unemployed jobseekers with local Lisa’s preparedness and her personality nonprofts and public agencies so they can impressed a recruiter and she was invited to increase skills and build self-confdence interview for a customer service position the while earning a modest income, with the next day, where she was hired on the spot. experience often leading to permanent Edmond recommends BACK TO WORK employment. 50+ without hesitation. “You learn a lot In 2017, SCSEP served more than about how looking for a job works these 14,000 participants and placed nearly days. When I was coming up, the main 3,500 in unsubsidized jobs. thing companies wanted was loyalty. It’s different now; people change jobs more Self-employment is a growing opportunity frequently, and that’s expected. There’s a for many older adults to improve their lot to learn in order to be up to date, and fnancial stability. AARP Foundation’s BACK TO WORK 50+ teaches you that.” Work for Yourself@50+ toolkit offers free information, support and resources to BACK TO WORK 50+ lives up to its name. help low-to moderate-income adults make It puts older adults back to work by giving smart decisions about self-employment. them the skills, training and coaching they need to compete with confdence for In 2017, the toolkits surpassed 7,000 today’s in-demand jobs. In 2017, more downloads and requests, and 1,500 than 1,000 people were employed through participants attended local workshops the coaching program. AARP Foundation across 30 cities. 4 CATASTROPHE AND COMMUNITY Imagine losing your home to a hurricane. For vulnerable older adults, a natural Now imagine getting it back — not just disaster compounds the struggles restored, but better than it was before the they already experience. In 2017, an storm. For Houstonians whose houses unprecedented hurricane season wreaked were made unlivable by Hurricane Harvey, havoc on communities in Texas, Florida, that’s exactly what’s happening. the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, leaving thousands of at-risk seniors Supported by a grant from the AARP without essential services. As in the Foundation Hurricane Harvey Relief past, AARP Foundation immediately Fund, a Houston organization is providing took action to provide relief to seniors eligible homeowners with critical repairs in the affected areas. like roofng, electrical and plumbing, plus something more: upgrades that make it In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma easier to age in place. and Maria, AARP Foundation moved quickly to launch three separate relief campaigns, raising more than $5.6 million in donations from AARP members, staff and the public. With matching funds from AARP, AARP Foundation and the Miami Dolphins, we’ve helped dozens of organizations provide on-the-ground relief to people in areas pummeled by the relentless storms. 5 Photo Credit: Amy Stroth/The New York Times/Redux York Amy Stroth/The New Photo Credit: ADVOCATING IN COURTS After years of consistently good of dramatic demographic change and the performance reviews and praise, Donetta proven value and positive attributes older Raymond suddenly found herself in the adults bring to the workplace.” company of 359 other colleagues, dropped off in an empty parking lot following a swift AARP Foundation’s legal advocacy for round of layoffs at Spirit AeroSystems. older adults in 2017 included several other highlights: Upon learning that nearly half of those in the layoffs were 40 or older — the • On behalf of AARP, Foundation age at which federal age discrimination attorneys successfully sued the law protections kick in — Ms. Raymond U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity and 70 other colleagues turned to AARP Commission (EEOC) for issuing rules Foundation for help in fling a suit in that permit employers to penalize the Federal District Court in Wichita, employees who decline to provide Kan. According to Laurie A. McCann, a confdential medical data as part of the lawyer with AARP Foundation, “ageism employer’s “wellness” plan. The court unfortunately remains pervasive in the held that the EEOC must revise the American workforce”— 50 years after the rules, which confict with employees’ Age Discrimination in Employment Act civil rights under the Americans (ADEA) became law. with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act. The ADEA was very much on the Foundation’s mind last year as we marked • With the help of the Foundation’s its 50th anniversary. In her closing remarks lawyers, the family of a man who died at the Lyndon B. Johnson School after his nursing home administered of Public Affairs at the University of Texas psychotropic drugs settled a wrongful in Austin, where we co-sponsored an death lawsuit against the nursing home event recognizing President Johnson’s and others that were responsible for enactment of the ADEA as a crucial part caring for their father. A similar lawsuit of his civil rights legacy, AARP Foundation against a nursing home in Delaware, President Lisa Marsh Ryerson said, fled by AARP Foundation attorneys “Age discrimination is the last acceptable and others, is still pending. prejudice in our society — even in the face 6 RECLAIMING PURPOSE When his long accounting career came of you, I’m doing something positive. to an end, Earl Robinson struggled with I accomplished something.” severe depression. One day, he noticed an ad for Experience Corps volunteers Experience Corps helps students at a in a local paper. “When I saw that, it was critical juncture while also engaging older a blessing,” he says. “It gave me, for the adult volunteers in their communities — lack of a better word, purpose.” putting their wisdom and experience to work while helping them regain a sense That sense of purpose is one reason why of involvement. In 2017, AARP Foundation Robinson returned for his second year Experience Corps volunteers invested with Experience Corps in Washington, 429,384 hours in helping 31,627 students D.C.— and why he plans to return for improve their reading skills. many years to come. The dedication of AARP Foundation Another is the kids. As much as they need volunteers extends well beyond the Robinson, it turns out that Robinson needs classroom. For more than 50 years, them, too. On the last day of the school volunteers with AARP Foundation Tax- year, one of his students asked whether Aide have helped low- and moderate- Robinson would come back to see him. income taxpayers prepare their tax returns “Of course,” Robinson replied. “Because for free. In 2017, more than 34,000 IRS- certifed Tax-Aide volunteers helped nearly Because of you, I’m doing something 2.6 million people navigate complicated tax codes, ensure proper credits and positive. I accomplished something. deductions, and fle their federal and state tax returns. Last year, Tax-Aide volunteers helped taxpayers gain $1.37 billion in income tax refunds, more than $222 million in Earned Income Tax Credits, and peace of mind. FROM DONOR TO VOLUNTEER AARP Foundation donor Nancy Davies I had never experienced relocated from New York City to Tucson, Ariz., to be near her mother, who at 89 that kind of enthusiasm. was spry, healthy and residing in an independent living community. In early but I think that’s going to change. Now 2017, Davies’ mother passed away that I’m semi-retired, I want to give my suddenly. Around the same time, a fier time, too.” about AARP Foundation’s Summer of Service to SeniorsSM Meal Pack Senior hunger exists in every community Challenge in Denver, Colo., arrived in across the country, but it remains one the mail. Davies, who had long been of America’s best-kept secrets. Last sensitive to the problem of senior summer, more than 7,000 volunteers hunger, saw an opportunity to honor put in 12,368 hours to bring that secret her mother’s life by doing something out of the shadows: 2017 marked AARP to help others. Foundation’s frst Summer of Service to SeniorsSM — a series of opportunities On July 9, Davies and hundreds of other around the country designed to call exuberant volunteers packed half a attention to senior hunger in America.