A film lighting director invents a peanut-shelling machine in North Carolina – and raises the income of farmers in Africa. A retired language professor organizes volunteers to help thousands of war refugees start a new life -- in Fargo, North Dakota. An immigrant who arrived with $6 in his pocket helps send Latino students to college – with money raised from his fellow gardeners in California.

The 15 recipients of the 2008 Purpose Prize – six $100,000 winners and nine $10,000 winners -- are taking on some of society's biggest challenges, from poverty to pollution and from health care to homelessness. They are also demonstrating that social innovation can spring from an unexpected source: experienced adults over 60.

These encore pioneers were culled from a pool of more than 1,000 nominees – and, for the first time, include Americans working in other countries.

Among the $100,000 Purpose Prize winners is Jock Brandis, 63, of Wilmington, N.C. A former lighting director in the film industry, he invented “the holy grail of sustainable agriculture”: a machine that helps African villagers shell peanuts more efficiently, thus boosting profits. Michele McRae, 71, is helping thousands of refugees – lured by a federal resettlement program – with an army of 500 primarily older volunteers. Catalino Tapia, 64, of Redwood City, Calif., was inspired by his son’s graduation from law school to raise money from other gardeners, clients and local businesses to fund scholarships for low-income students.

The other $100,000 Purpose Prize winners are: Mark Goldsmith, 71, of New York City, a former cosmetics marketing executive who is slashing recidivism rates by offering young men at Rikers Island education, coaching, instruction in life skills and job training; Arlene Blum, 63, of Berkeley, Calif., a professional mountaineer and chemist who is mobilizing scientists, consumers and industry to limit toxins in household products; and Joe James, 61, of Columbia, S.C., a former government employee who is working to ensure that black farmers in the South are included in the new “green” economy.

The Purpose Prize, a six-year, $17 million program, is the nation’s only large-scale investment in social innovators in the second half of life. It is part of the Encore Careers Campaign, which aims to engage millions of boomers in encore careers that combine social impact, personal meaning and continued income in the second half of life – while producing a windfall of human talent to solve critical social problems.

The nine $10,000 Purpose Prize winners are:

• Barbara T. Cervone, 61, of Providence, R.I., a former philanthropy executive who refutes assumptions about young people by allowing them to speak for themselves — on the Web, on paper, in the field and in action research projects.
• Jay Powell Davidson, 66, of Louisville, Ky., a former alcoholic and military officer who created a successful new model for simultaneously housing the homeless and treating drug addiction.
• Margaret Fleming, 72, of Oak Park, Ill., a mother of nine adopted children who is working to improve adoption rates for hard-to-place orphans, including those with HIV.
• Nasrine Gross, 63, of Falls Church, Va., anAfghani native who spends most of the year in Kabul teaching literacy classes to couples in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
• Toni Heineman, 61, of San Francisco, a therapist who has organized her colleagues to offer free counseling “for as long as it takes” to foster youth who are often bounced around the system and struggle to trust adults.
• Nelson and Joyce Johnson, 65 and 61, of Greensboro, N.C. Nelson led the labor and civil rights march dubbed “the Greensboro Massacre” and later, with his wife, launched America’s first Truth and Reconciliation Commission to heal old wounds.
• Richard Ladner, 65, of Seattle, a computer science professor and son of deaf parents who works with students to develop technologies for people with disabilities
• Sharon Schindler Rising, 68, of Cheshire, Conn., a nurse-midwife who is revolutionizing prenatal care by conducting routine care in 90-minute group sessions, and reducing dangerous preterm births in the process.
• Ray Umashankar, 66, of India and Tucson, a computer engineering professor who is teaming up with his daughter to provide children of sex workers and victims of trafficking in India with IT skills and jobs.

The talent runs even deeper, and includes more than 50 new Purpose Prize Fellows who are all pursuing extraordinary encore careers. They will join the Purpose Prize winners at the first-ever Encore Careers Summit at Stanford University in early December.

Read the press release. Stories, videos and photos of all the winners are available at www.purposeprize.org.

The Purpose Prize, the Encore Careers Campaign and Encore.org are initiatives of Civic Ventures, a national think tank on boomers, work and social purpose.

Could you be a Purpose Prize winner next year? Nominations, including self-nominations, are now open for the 2009 Purpose Prize.