After receiving a $3.2 million grant from the Deerbrook Charitable Trust, the American Association of Community Colleges’ Plus 50 Initiative is set to expand to 100 campuses by 2015, tripling the program’s size. Chosen community colleges will receive grant funds to train students 50 and older for jobs in health care, education, or social service professions.

AACC’s new Plus 50 Encore College initiative will release a request for proposals in May 2012.

Editor's note: This essay first appeared on the Harvard Business Review's website. Find, and comment on, the original here.

I was so impressed with Marc Freedman's last book, Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life, that I left my work as a journalist to help build the movement for encore careers for the greater good.

Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha – authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Start-Up of You – are hosting a live, hourlong webcast in which they will discuss how you can accelerate your career today.

The session will be held Thursday, March 29, at 6:30 p.m. PST. Click here to register. (You will receive the webcast link after registration.)

After decades in real estate, Dave Hughes was ready for his encore career. He applied for jobs at nonprofit organizations near his new home in eastern Oregon, hoping to capitalize on his years of church volunteer work. He got no offers.

“We needed the additional income,” he says. “My wife told me, ‘Get a job now.’” So Hughes took a three-month job at the local Walmart, which led to a promotion to receiving manager.

My Twitter ‘hatch date’ (when I joined Twitter) was Sept. 20, 2009. Back then, it was a fairly new social networking platform, and I frequently found myself asking, “What’s the point?” As I approach my third anniversary, I’ve learned quite a bit from this new medium of online communication.

If you’re a boomer who has decided to brave the vast Twitterverse, here’s my list of the top five things I wish I knew when I started.

Priscilla Santiago of Bridgeport, Conn., is a mother of three, grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of five. At 63, she was also one of the oldest students to receive a bachelor's degree from Post University in 2011. Santiago left high school at 16 after a devastating sexual assault. Laid off from her job at age 59, she reinvented her life. She spoke with Huff/Post50 editor Laura Rowley.

Social media can be a bit like Mardi Gras. It’s fun. It’s colorful. You meet lots of people from all walks of life. But, like any party, it’s not always clear who to give your phone number to at the end of the night.

I get a lot of questions about meeting new people online. The most common one is this: “What if I get Facebook and LinkedIn requests from people I’ve never met. Should I accept?”

That’s completely up to you, but here’s my take on building meaningful relationships online.

Facebook

This post is part of a series sponsored by Fast Company and Catchafire on the future of service in America.

People who are between midlife and old age are looking for another round of service with the same motivations that young people have--to give back, to have an adventure, to acquire experience, and to gain credentials and credibility.