Award Shines Spotlight on Encore-Ready Employers
 |
Some organizations are doing a great job of engaging boomers in good work – and we think they should get credit for it.
That’s why Civic Ventures and the MetLife Foundation have teamed up to offer the Encore Opportunity Awards. They will honor nonprofit and public sector organizations that hire individuals over age 50 in encore careers that combine continued income with work that has personal meaning and social impact. Organizations that match older adults with social sector and public sector employers are also eligible for the award.
Winners will receive $2,500 and we’ll promote their promising practices widely. Nominations may be submitted to Civic Ventures at www.civicventures.org/encoreopportunity through June 1.
The awards are patterned on the 2007 BreakThrough Awards, which honored 10 nonprofit and public sector organizations providing meaningful public interest jobs to people over age 50. You can read about them in the BreakThrough Award report.
Among those receiving awards in 2007 were the YMCA of Greater Rochester, N.Y., which introduced flexible hours, job sharing and part-time positions to encourage experienced adults to apply for openings; the Pima Council on Aging in Pima County, Ariz., which created the Mature Worker Connection to offer job placement services for people over age 50; and the Nursing Home Ombudsman Agency of the Bluegrass in Kentucky hired 33 paid ombudsmen over age 50 to support individuals in nursing homes.
- Terry Nagel's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- by Terry Nagel
Teacher education for Encore members
Every day when I open a local or even national newspapers I see budget cut and teacher layoffs.I am not conviced that we are doing our society any favors by training individuals in their second part of life for a teaching career I would like to see more people volunteering to tutor our young adults learning the basic skills of Math. and English ,so they can get their GED diploma and prepare for a better career.I saw an article recently on our prison system and how very little is done for the inmates when they return to society.We do not like to see a former inmate to go back to his activties before he or she was incarcerated.
One article I read recently called our present system: Warehousing of our prisoners.
We have a lot of talent among our seniors.I say let’s use it and share it with
some people ,who are les fortunate than we.For this you do not need a teaching certification and at the same time we do not take away jobs away from teachers who might otherwise be laid off.
I have been tutoring Math. at Manatee Technical Institute for three years and there
is nothing that gives me more pleasure than have a student come up to me and thanking me for helping him or her to get that GED diploma.
I would like to see more seniors concentrating on volunteering if they can afford it instead of training for a teaching position.
Klaas Lindemulder,Bradenton,Florida,Email:klaaslind@aol.com