by Janna Overstreet
On April 23 of 2009 Governor Pat Quinn proclaimed 2010 as the Year of the Engaged Older Adult. A few months ago Jane Angelis from the Illinois Policy Academy phoned and asked if I would be willing to sit on the Advisory Council of the Policy Academy which was planning the events for the year of the Civically Engaged Older Adult. I was pleased to be asked to be a part of something I so wanted to celebrate. You see since I was a little girl I have been surrounded by strong women who volunteered most days and certainly every week in order to help their neighbor, a stranger, fellow community or church member. A result of my experiences civic engagement is ingrained in me and I have deep respect for those who give of themselves for the benefit of others.
As a group we have met and began to discuss how we could locate and celebrate volunteers across the State of Illinois. We know you are out there giving of yourselves in order to better the lives of others but we had to figure out how to find you. We found many of you in formal volunteer organizations such as hospital guilds and retired senior volunteer programs and found that you are giving tens of thousands of hours of your time each year to your communities. However, so many of you are what I refer to as informal volunteers, those who pick up the ball when it has been dropped by the system. You fill in the gaps in social services each day by driving an ill friend to the Dr., stopping by and visiting with a friend who is now home bound, you read to young people at the local school or library, you take care of the young family’s child while they go to work or to the grocery, you have picked up the pieces of some young girl or boy who was mistreated by their own parents.
We want you to know that we respect your contributions to society, your selfless acts of kindness and your brilliance. We also want to hear and share your stories of how volunteering has changed your life, how it has enhanced your retirement (if you are retired) and where you are doing this volunteering, formal or informal. You see here at Eastern we have a group of over 300 young adults who also are volunteers in the local communities. But we want more both young and older adults to have the joy of volunteering. We believe that your stories will help to entice others to volunteer. We want potential volunteers to understand that volunteering is something that can be done for an hour a day, a week or a month. We want them to know that being civically engaged through volunteering is so satisfying that once you begin you do not want to quit and that any age person makes a wonderful volunteer. I heard a short story in a meeting yesterday about a man who has macular degeneration and whose world is becoming smaller due to his loss of eyesight. Right away when this story was told there were two or three people in the room who felt that they can find something meaningful for this man to do to be helpful in his community and to widen his circle in what must be one of the scariest times of his life. How beautiful when we all get together and solve issues. If you have stories of how volunteering has made your life more beautiful, share them with me by emailing me at all@eiu.edu or phoning 217-581-5114. This is your year, celebrate it!!