President Obama met with social innovators at the White House on June 30, including a half-dozen winners of The Purpose Prize, and lauded them for “succeeding where others have failed; getting real, measurable results; changing the way we think about some of our toughest problems.”

The president specifically called out “young-at-heart people like Robert Chambers, who finish out careers in business or health care or education, and instead of transitioning into retirement, they’re just too busy, they’re too restless, so they come back for an encore, plowing a lifetime of experience into helping people in need.”

>>C-Span video of the White House event.
>>White House press release.
>>Transcript of the president’s remarks.

“Older Americans who want to help solve the nation’s social problems will soon have even more opportunities to do so,” The New York Times reports.

“The legislation creates for the first time a series of programs that will help direct retirees into new roles in nonprofit and public service, on the front lines and in management,” adds The Wall Street Journal.

Media coverage of the Serve America Act reflects the growing nationwide enthusiasm — born of both choice and economic necessity — for tapping the talents and experience of aging baby boomers to tackle the nation’s increasingly urgent challenges.

If anybody needs evidence of the cost-effectiveness of the major national service legislation that awaits only President Obama’s signature, it’s in a new study that shows that elementary school students with Experience Corps tutors made over 60 percent more progress in crucial reading skills than students without Experience Corps tutors.

Editor's note: Lester Strong started work today as the new chief executive of Experience Corps, the award-winning national service program that engages people over 55 in meeting their communities' greatest challenges. In this letter to the Experience Corps' community, he introduces himself better than we ever could.

I’ve arrived here in Washington to start my new job as CEO of Experience Corps just a few days before the nation celebrates Martin Luther King Day and the Obamas move into the White House. At first I thought the President-elect and I showing up at the same time was just an inconvenient coincidence (don’t get me started on the traffic!). But upon reflection, maybe there’s something bigger going on here.

At this moment in our nation’s history, I feel – and I suspect many Americans feel – equal parts trepidation and optimism. Fear of war and the worst economy of our lifetimes. Hope that we will realize Dr. King’s dream; that we shall, in fact, overcome.

Hope and the belief that anything is possible are powerful emotions. They helped fuel the civil rights movement and brought about our nation’s civil rights laws. They helped propel Barack Obama to the nation’s highest office. And they motivate Experience Corps members across the country to show up every day at some of the nation’s most challenged public schools to help young children overcome the longest of odds.

But hope, as Dr. King knew and as President-elect Obama and Experience Corps members know today, doesn’t get the job done by itself. Hope alone is not enough. It takes work, hard work, to make change, to defy odds, to truly overcome.

Individuals and organizations pledged to sustain the momentum from the first-ever Encore Careers Summit this month, committing themselves to projects and plans to bring a windfall of human talent to bear on our generation’s most pressing challenges.

“We are going to do something extraordinary today,” Ruth Wooden declared at the start of the summit at Stanford University. “We are going to actually launch a movement.”

Wooden, president of Public Agenda and chair of Civic Ventures’ board of directors, challenged individuals to declare what they will do to advance the movement in 2009, and introduced 10 organizations with concrete plans to launch or expand encore programs.

In a rousing call to action at the Encore Careers Summit, Gara LaMarche (at left) urged older Americans to heed the call to service that was a hallmark of President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign as well as push for policy changes that will help launch encore careers. His speech was featured on the home page of The Huffington Post.

As president and CEO of The Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the few foundations focused on aging, and as a former leader with Human Rights Watch and other organizations working for positive social change, LaMarche has watched social activism ebb and flow in many countries.

“Make the most of this moment,” he told the audience. “Respond to the call of a new president when he asks what we can do for our country, a country in which many of us are happily surprised to find we take a newfound pride.

Joe James (at left) was inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr., to create opportunities for black farmers in the South. Arlene Blum was outraged when she discovered the chemical that she had fought to have removed from children’s sleepwear was showing up in furniture. Watching his older son receive a law degree, Catalino Tapia was filled with an overwhelming desire to enable other children of Latino immigrants to go to college.

The six $100,000 winners of The Purpose Prize told of different paths to their world-changing roles as they accepted their awards on December 6, but their stories shared a common theme: All would stop at nothing in order to change the system.

“If you’re not making trouble out there, you’re not getting the job done,” said Mark Goldsmith, a former marketing executive who now coaches male inmates at Riker’s Island in skills needed for life after prison. Goldsmith recalled his surprise when a warden praised his efforts, saying, “We don’t know why they’re listening to a white man in a suit, but they’re listening to you.” They were listening to him, Goldsmith said, because “nobody ever talks to these young men.”

A new report profiles 10 community colleges that are attracting experienced workers, engaging local employers and helping prepare boomers for meaningful work in the second half of life.

Encore Fellowships are a central feature of both the Serve America Act of 2008, introduced by Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, and the Encore Service Act of 2008, proposed by Senators Chris Dodd and Thad Cochran, along with Kennedy.

Other innovative features in the bills would also help catalyze new solutions to major social challenges by calling Americans of all ages to serve their country and their communities. The two bills have some minor differences in approach, which will be worked out in the inevitably lengthy legislative process.

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are both co-sponsors of the Serve America Act, and both have pledged to sign it into law if elected.

Baltimore’s intergenerational alliance of young people and older adults won a long-awaited victory this week when Mayor Sheila Dixon added $250,000 for the successful reading program to next year’s city budget.

Last month, 85 members of Experience Corps went to the Baltimore City Council to ask for funds to expand the successful program in which 373 senior volunteers help students in 20 Baltimore area schools learn to read. More than a dozen people described Experience Corps’ positive impacts on children, as well as the satisfaction it affords the adults who mentor them.