President Obama meets today with social innovators to highlight successful programs that are solving critical problems in communities across the country. Notably, Americans in encore careers, which combine social impact, income and personal meaning in the second half of life, will participate.

“I was old enough to understand the injustice I saw and experienced enough to do something about it,” said Robert Chambers, a social innovator in his encore career and a winner of the Purpose Prize, who will speak at the event. “Given the size of our baby boomer population, it’s high time to figure out how to recycle all that experience, to use it to solve our nation’s most pressing social problems.”

A 2008 survey of 3,500 people between the ages of 44 and 70 found that 5-8 million Americans are already in encore careers — and of those workers who have not yet launched an encore career, fully half are interested in doing so. Among those currently in encore careers are Americans creating their own new social ventures to address pressing problems.

In addition to Chambers, five other winners of the Purpose Prize, a major national award for social innovators in encore careers, will be at the White House today. The Purpose Prize is a project of the Encore Careers campaign, sponsored by Civic Ventures, a national think tank on boomers, work and social purpose.

To watch the live video from the 10:40 a.m. PT / 1:40 p.m. ET event, visit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/.

Available sources include these experts and previous Purpose Prize winners:

John Gomperts, president of Civic Ventures (Washington, D.C.)
Robert Chambers: co-founder and president, Bonnie CLAC (Claremont, NH)
Dr. Gayle Porter and Dr. Marilyn Gaston: founders of the Prime Time Sister Circles and the Gaston & Porter Health Improvement Center (Washington, D.C.)
Martha Rollins: founder, president and CEO of Boaz and Ruth (Richmond, VA)
Sharon Rohrbach: founder of Nurses for Newborns (St. Louis, MO)
Gary Maxworthy: founder, Farm to Family, a program of the California Association of Food Banks (San Francisco, CA)

For more information, visit www.Encore.org.

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