Encore: Work that matters in the second half of life.

Gary Maxworthy, founder of Farm to Family. Photo by S. Smith Patrick/Civic Ventures.

Time magazine profiles Gary Maxworthy, a 2007 Purpose Prize winner, who gave up a six-figure salary in the food-distribution business to start Farm to Family, which this year will deliver 34 million pounds of free produce to low-income families in California.

“Maxworthy is part of a small movement of folks leaving a solid career at mid-life to rediscover a sense of purpose,” writes Dan Kadlec. “Rather than leave a legacy at life’s end, they choose to live their legacy now.”

Marc Freedman, author of Encore, tells Kadlec, “So many people think if they don’t have an enormous sum of money to leave to a philanthropic group, they can’t leave an important legacy. But the way we use our experience—something we all have—may be a more enduring gift to future generations than money.”

Indeed, Maxworthy is using his professional know-how to solve a vexing problem: how to deliver fresh food to low-income families that often get only processed or fast food. He gets a salary of $2,000 a month, a steep cut from his former salary, but enough to make ends meet.

Maxworthy is certainly doing good, but the article’s headline, “The Do-Gooder Option,” strikes an odd note that seems to trivialize his entrepreneurial achievements. Similarly, the phrase “volunteer work” casts social innovation as somehow marginal and peripheral to “real work.”

The article notes that “paid volunteer work — an oxymoron for the ages — is increasingly the norm.” That suggests that our language may soon catch up.