LEARNING LATER, LIVING GREATER:
The Secret for Making the Most of Your After-50 Years.
…a Health Club for Your Mind. Body and Spirit!
Continuing our discussion of examples of meaningful community service by lifelong learners, check out the following:
The Academy for Lifelong Learning (A.L.L.) at Carnegie Mellon University has been providing tutors for the last six years to a local elementary school. A.L.L. members work with students who need help with reading and math. The Academy also donated a new fax machine to the school.
The Center for Learning in Retirement at Rock Valley College in Rockford, IL offers its members the chance to learn how to teach reading to adults. Once the course is completed, members can then become volunteer tutors in their community.
Members of the Duke University Institute for Learning in Retirement in Durham, North Carolina are very active in several different volunteer projects. The program “adopted” a local elementary school in 1993 and since then interested members spend two hours/week there as tutors and classroom assistants. Other members support the Children’s Hospital/Children’s Miracle Network, which raises money for sick children in the area. Still other members volunteer for studies at the Center for Aging, while others work with international students and faculty at Duke.
The Renaissance Institute at the College of Notre Dame in Maryland is committed to taking part in service and intergenerational programs. In the Freshman Interviews program, members are interviewed by students from the Perspectives on Education and Culture course. Along with that program, a six-week Service Learning program has been started for members who are interested in finding out just what service learning is all about. They will then use this knowledge to identify community outreach initiatives.
Members of the Seniors’ Education Centre at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan have a chance to participate in the Outreach and Applied Research Projects that take place at the University. Among the projects currently underway are Rural Education Outreach, Intercultural Grandmothers and Older Adult Literacy projects.
Members of the Senior College at Lewiston-Auburn College in Maine are involved in a unique service program entitled Franco-American Architecture in Lewiston. They do cultural fieldwork and developed an exhibit around this theme. Course activity includes oral history, geography, genealogy, archaeology and archival research.
The Academy for Learning in Retirement at Saratoga Springs, New York has members who sit on boards of local organizations, work in soup kitchens and food pantries, volunteer at hospices and work in museums and churches.
Members of the Adult Learning Program at the University of Connecticut in Hartford volunteer at the Athenaeum, and do volunteer teaching at the local high schools.
The Academy for Senior Professionals at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida says its membership volunteers their time at 110 non-profit agencies in the area. A few of the wide-ranging activities include fundraising for the local orchestra, docent activities at museums, working at a spouse abuse center, sitting on boards, teaching courses at local schools, providing low income tax assistance and working in churches.
The membership of the Berkshire Institute for Lifetime Learning at Berkshire Community College in Massachusetts are deeply involved in volunteering at the many cultural activities in the area. They also volunteer to read for the bind and dyslexic, construct housing for the homeless, work at various libraries and volunteer at local hospitals and hospices.
A sampling of volunteer activities from the Lifelong Learning Institute at Caldwell College in New Jersey includes establishment of a computer science curriculum in grades K-8 at two local schools, serving on the Educational Advisory boards and on various committees at these schools.
These activities clearly demonstrate the link between lifelong learning and community service. The two just naturally go together.
THURSDAY’S THOUGHT…
Lifelong learners epitomize the axiom by Henry van Dyke; Use what talent you possess! The world would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.
For more information on Learning Later, Living Greater visit http://www.learninglater.com/ You can purchase Learning Later, Living Greater at http://www.amazon.com/
Till Next Time…
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