Rep. Sarbanes at Experience Corps
Rep. John Sarbanes, D-MD, joins Marc Freedman and David Cohen at the national meeting of Experience Corps in Washington, DC, on July 12. Photo by Eric Boven. Copyright Civic Ventures/Eric Boven.
Rep. John Sarbanes praised Experience Corps for its innovative and effective program that connects baby boomers and older adults with critical community needs, and called on local, state and national policymakers to do more to prepare for the coming wave of boomer retirements.
“We need a mind shift in public policy… to see this wave coming not as something that will crash down over our heads but that lifts us up, as a nation, and moves us forward,” Sarbanes, (D-Md.) told the national meeting of Experience Corps projects July 12 in Washington, DC.
“That’s what’s so exciting about Experience Corps,” he said. “You broker the opportunities that exist between seniors and the needs in our society, and, more important, you will create new opportunities.”
A freshman congressman, Sarbanes spent seven years as special assistant to Maryland’s State Superintendent of Schools and served as liaison to the Baltimore City Public Schools under the City-State Partnership. He described Experience Corps in Baltimore as “serving students in ways that are unmatched.”
Sarbanes was joined on a panel by Marc Freedman, author of Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life and the founder and CEO of Civic Ventures. Freedman launched Experience Corps in 1995 to demonstrate that older adults could address some of our country’s greatest community needs.
“Experience Corps is going to be on the forefront of generating a new level of interest in how people are contributing (to community service),” Sarbanes said. “It is incredibly important.”
John Gomperts, CEO of Experience Corps, thanked Sarbanes for his remarks. “I have worked alongside a number of congressional representatives over the years, and often find advocates who are enthusiastic about the promise of community service,” Gomperts said “Rarely, however, have I heard the kinds of insights that Rep. Sarbanes brings.”
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Our American Adventure
Congressman Sarbanes paid tribute to Experience Corps members who every school day connect with children who can use a boost. In Sarbanes words they help meet “critical community needs.” Sarbanes challenges us to think of what these actions mean as public spirited participants in our American adventure.
I use “adventure” deliberately. In the work that Experience Corps members do, they capture a spirit and practice of public purpose that shows a side of America that we too often hide from ourselves as a people. At our best, as citizens who act in community, we create and produce.
Congressman Sarbanes has demonstrated that spirit and talent. As a first term member of the House he shaped the GIVE Act—Generations Invigorating, Volunteering and Education Act with his amendment on a national Conversation on Veterans and Community Service.
Note the emphasis on conversation so that we deliberate and come together to take actions as a people. Go to any neighborhood, community or state and you will find that it has shortages in jobs that meet important public purposes—education, health, housing, transportation environment. These are our equalizing institutions that with a sustained effort will close the inequities in our society. That is why, just as we do in Experience Corps, we have to engage people who have experience and energy to start an Encore career.
Acting together we can initiate, innovate and invent. We will draw on people from all walks of life to be part of our new American adventure. Our challenge calls on us to give voice and language to show why the Encore concept stands as one major way older people will continue to be creators and producers.