Vaboomer -- Baby Boomer Views & News

The Beginning of the Vaboomer Movement: Encore Work

Money on Monday: New Work Paths Opening

It is a truism that truth can be "discovered" by many people at the same time. So for those  who have been reading my blog regularly will find the below announcement about an Encore Conference in CA.right in line with the notion of reFIREment that I have written about numerous times.

We boomers, which some call the Woodstock Generation, were inspired by great leaders who asked us to contribute to society. Recall JFK's 1961 Inaugural speech "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country? In fact click on this link and read the entire speech. JFK Speech It is as inspiring now as it was when I was in high school.

So it is not at all surprising to me that our generation has little desire to retreat from the world and do nothing. We still want to contribute and do our bit for our country. And in these trying economic times we need to work as well.

Encore.org is sponsoring an essay contest that will award 10 winners each an all expense paid trip to the Encore Careers Summit at Stanford University December 4-6, 2008.

The topic is :"What Inspired Your Encore Career?"

Encore.org, is the network for boomers who want paid work that offers personal meaning and social purpose,

will award 10 free trips to the winners of the "My Encore Moment" story contest. Entries are due October 20 at 5 p.m. Pacific time.

The contest asks entrants to describe the inspiration, insight or event that set them on the path to an encore career and to describe how that work is meaningful to them and others.

Do you have an encore experience to share? In addition to inspiring others to find encore careers, you could win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Encore Careers Summit at Stanford University in California, where hundreds who have encore careers will launch what could be the most significant transformation of the workplace since the women's movement.

Click here to get started:
 

MORE RESOURCES
 "Community Colleges Fast-Track Boomers Into Jobs"
 
Nonprofit organizations, schools and health care providers have openings
for experienced workers. Boomers want them. How do you connect the two?
 
A new report issued by Civic Ventures provides some ideas. Called
 "Pathways to Encore Careers: How 10 Community Colleges Are Preparing
 Boomers for Work in Education, Health Care and Social Services," it
 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.
 
The programs in the report are offered by colleges in Arizona, California,
 Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon and Texas,
 as well as the statewide Virginia Community College System. They include
 career transition courses, curriculum development, community partnerships,
 supportive student services and job placement.
 
Civic Ventures launched the Community College Encore Career Grants Program
 with support from the MetLife Foundation, which provided each of the 10
 community colleges with a $25,000 grant to help match boomers' experience,
 skills and interests to encore careers in education, health care and
 social services.
 
To read about the report, click here:
 http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=237929749&u=2514338
 
To read a PDF version of the complete report, click here:
 http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=237929749&u=2514339
 

Nobel Prize for Children

Two Classic reFIREEs Bring Prestige and Resources to Children’s Leaders Internationally

Money on Monday: Treasure of a Different Kind. Important in These Difficult Times

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry Leibowitz was 14 when his 46-year-old father died.

Not long afterward, he and his family were in serious economic trouble.

 The sheriff repossessed the furniture in their Coney Island, NYC tenement apartment.  Young Harry went to work to save and support his family and later went on to a PhD in statistics, ultimately becoming a Brand Manager at Procter and Gamble, and subsequently the head of his own company. He thought he knew children’s hardship and poverty, but his world travels as a corporate leader showed him otherwise.  

Today Harry and Kay Isaacson-Leibowitz— who laughingly say they are in “reviverment,” having married five years ago—

are preparing to give several hundred thousand dollars

to recipients of the 2008 World of Children Awards World of Childlren on

November 13, at the UNICEF offices in New York.

Now 67 and 62, Harry and Kay are eager, filled with energy and love and passion for their work and for each other.  How did these two corporate leaders, Kay was number two at Victoria's Secret when she retired, find each other and build Harry’s dream of a “Pulitzer Prize” for leaders saving abused and battered children based on work he had already been doing?

Mark Freedman calls people like Harry and Kay encore workers: people who have found work that matters in the second half of life. His book, “Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the second Half of Life” describes an impulse similar to Harry’s for thousands if not millions of boomers. Freedman goes on to propose that such an impulse by millions of longer and healthier living boomers will positively change the nature of work and society. I think Freedman is completely correct. And I think there is something even more profound than just finding work that matters, I think there is an  intangible urge to let one’s inner brilliance shine forth—a deep necessity to reFIRE. As Harry quipped the other day, “I just couldn’t imagine playing shuffle board in Florida for the rest of my life.”

Like many great ideas, Harry’s came to him in a flash of brilliance.

His insight was inspired by three influences: his own boyhood poverty and tragedy, his travels that showed him true poverty and unspeakable abuse suffered by children around the world, and his own life threatening illness. In 1996, Harry was struck with  a second bout of cancer, this one life threatening. He had had thyroid cancer in '92. While recovering from prostrate surgery and feeling noooooooooo pain, Harry got the notion to create a “Pulitzer Prize” for change makers improving the lives of children. Specifically he wanted to bring the same kind of public value to those working diligently for children, but in obscurity, that the Pulitzer and the Nobel Peace Prizes bring to writers and scientists.

Two years of research and organizing, and a quarter of a million dollars of his own money later, the first World of Children Prize was given. And that is where the second reFIREment began as well. While still running Victoria's Secret, Kay Isaacson (WOC co-founder) attended the second awards, typically given in New York in November.  Kay’s story is much different from Harry’s. She was the daughter of a fighter pilot who ended as a general, lived internationally and generally had a secure if peripatetic life. What she saw was her mother regularly volunteering in hospitals. At the Limited, her boss was adamant that executives give back. And as she said, “once you have a broad vision you can’t ignore” what is under your nose. So Kay first fell in love with the mission of World of Children. But it was not love at first sight for her when it came to Harry. Although Kay has seen Harry at the awards ceremony, they actually met through their mutual massage therapist who recommended them to each other. Eventually Harry and

 Kay fell in love with each other and now are reveling in their “reviverment” marriage.

Of their life together now, Kay says that giving back makes them joyful. They do some things typical of retirees: they travel and have simple interests, but The World of Children definitely is the “best thing we do.” And speaking of the WOC’s Board of Directors, she says, “They are all Boomers and all so giving and caring.”

2008 Recipients

One of the upcoming 2008 awardees is

• a former two-time kidnapped Ugandan boy soldier, who now in his 30s rehabilitates other boy soldiers.
  

• Another is a 12-year-old Iowa girl, who with other children has so far raised about $10,000,000, yes you read it right! $10,000,000 for post-Katrina kids. 

• Then there is the Brazilian woman who rescues girls from sexual predation and poverty. Harry and Kay said they are “blown away “ by the caliber of this year’s awardees and by all previous 70 winners.

In answer to the question, what has this work meant to you, Harry said,

“I wonder what took me so long. It’s the feeling Kay and I get…whole new batteries for our bodies".

Last year, he said, one of the woman awardees came over to him with tears streaming down her cheeks. She put her arms around me and I was crying, too. She said, ‘All these years, I never thought anyone cared or noticed.’”

As he related this story to me, the three of us were pretty sniffly and misty eyed. I think they were touched again at how grateful they are to be privileged to do this work, bring recognition to extraordinary leaders around the world and bring them real financial support as well. But what got me was two fold: this is clearly a great program, doing necessary work, rescuing the most vulnerable. And I always get going with that scenario.

But I was thrilled and moved for them as well. How wonderful to heed your heart’s message and send your treasures into the world and receive the treasures of the world in return. Harry might chide himself, asking what took him so long. But when the message came, he listened and took action. And as a result, Harry and Kay have recieved personal and philanthropic happiness—not by just writing a check; doing your good works, so to speak, but by empowering others to enable the least of us.

I can’t wait to meet them in November and give them my big hugs as well—for noticing and for caring.

Obama/Biden Ticket Boomers; McCain/Palin Not. Hummmm....Is There a Message Here?

Is there a message here that the Democratic candidates are Baby Boomers and the GOP's are not?

Obama and Biden bracket our generation which many now say will change the face of retirement and the face of our economic and cultural life--in wonderful and innovative ways.

In coming posts I will be interviewing innovative reFIREES--who epitomize the best of Vaboomers.

From a former corporate CEO who is  now involved in advocating for children to a newly minted international traveler to a former NBA great now a counselor for troubled kids. I'll be exploring with them what is that brillant inner light that is shining forth.

Obama and Biden reflect that same sense of hopefulness and practicality that is typical for millions of boomers. We can be very proud of our generation.