Who Won the Encore Career Handbook Story Contest?
05/03/2013 - 12:24:02pm
There's so much talk about how people over 50 are having the toughest time rebounding from the recession that we at Encore.org wanted to uncover the stories of those who have overcome obstacles and those who are using their encore careers to help others hard hit.
Recently I asked for your stories, and you shared your many passions, journeys and triumphs. We were honored to read them. We picked five favorites to share.
- by: Marci Alboher | More >
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| Diane Accurso , Beaumont Health System |
| Visit Beaumont Health System's website |
Beaumont Health System
Editor's note: This is Diane Accurso's story in her own words.
I spent my first career as a project manager, primarily in the IT world. I worked for General Motors and periodically they would open a retirement window for eligible employees. Essentially, if you met the criteria you were generally able to retire from the company and begin receiving a pension. For me, that made the time right to try something different after 32 years at GM.
Founder and Executive Director
Latinas Contra Cancer
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
When her doctor told her she had cancer, Ysabel Duron didn’t think she would die. Her first impulse was to wonder what she was supposed to get out of the experience. Her second was to do a story.
The Ravenswood Family Health Center provides health care for the underserved, uninsured, and most vulnerable low-income residents of communities in southeastern San Mateo County. An experienced Encore Fellow provided expert knowledge that lead to significant cost savings from improved supply chain management and order processing.
Founder and Senior Director
Herald Cancer Association
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
When Lucy Young was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988, she was a pastor’s wife in Queens, N.Y., and terrified of death. The Chinese-American, who was more comfortable speaking Chinese than English, was afraid to discuss a taboo topic with her Chinese friends and couldn’t find any Chinese-language cancer resources.
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| Im Ja P. Choi , Penn Asian Senior Services |
| Visit Penn Asian Senior Services' website |
| Contact Im Ja P. Choi |
Penn Asian Senior Services
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
Im Ja P. Choi at times felt helpless as her 85-year-old mother lay in a Philadelphia hospital bed recovering from three surgeries for stomach cancer. She watched in frustration as the nurses tried to communicate with her Korean mother in English. “They said, ‘roll over.’ She didn’t understand ‘roll over,’ so the nurses had to push her,” Choi recalls of that 2002 hospital stay.
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| Pauline Nagle Olsen , Malta House of Care |
| Visit Malta House of Care's website |
| Contact Pauline Nagle Olsen |
Malta House of Care
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
Over the years, physician Pauline Nagle Olsen felt called to volunteer on medical missions in South Korea. But after leaving her private practice in 2005, she wanted to help people closer to home, in Hartford, Conn.
Founder
Give Children A Choice
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
In 2000, after his kids left home, financial executive Dori Shimoda revived a promise he had made to himself nearly 20 years earlier, after he survived an 18-hour kidnapping at gunpoint: to help others. Searching for a way, he backpacked around Southeast Asia.
As he explored the remote villages along Laos’ countryside, Shimoda was struck by how many children, especially girls, weren’t in school. Instead they looked after younger siblings and did domestic chores. Preschools were virtually nonexistent.
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| Nancy Morgans-Ferguson , Shalom Free Clinic |
| Visit Shalom Free Clinic's website |
| Contact Nancy Morgans-Ferguson |
Shalom Free Clinic
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
Nancy Morgans-Ferguson had recently retired from a 30-year career in pharmaceutical and medical sales when one day in 2005 a homeless woman knocked on the door of her church in Chico, Calif. The woman asked for a glass of water, but she needed much more: She had mental and physical issues, but she feared the emergency room.
Co-founder and Board President
Second Wind Fund
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
In 2002, Colorado family therapist Marjorie Laird learned that four teens at the high school next door to her church had committed suicide in just nine months of each other. Their deaths reflected a grim reality: Suicide is the second leading cause of death among Colorado youths. (Car crashes are the first.) And there are few mental health resources for low-income teens.
