Checking out the fishing action roadside from the motor home.

After a successful career and then retirement, is there another ladder to climb for volunteering?

The answer is, only if you want to climb that ladder. Volunteering at any age is worthy and even brings health benefits. See my other posts on the subject of health, positivity, connectivity, and ways to broaden one’s mind, using meditation. However, health aside volunteering has many other benefits for both sides of the volunteer equation which in these days of declining services and opportunities are more in need than every before.

AARP, the largest and probably the most recognized of the retirement age advocacy groups in the United States also provides several paths and steps for those who want to volunteer. This group is well organized and very focused on the welfare of the retired membership.

http://www.aarp.org/giving-back/

Freemasons, the largest and oldest fraternal organization in the world are another group where men of all ages are welcome to join and where volunteering is highly encouraged. Freemasons only accept men who believe in a supreme being, are of legal age, free of criminal past, well respected in the community, and who are willing to pass through the three degrees of initiation. Most men who join the Masons have been volunteers for many years in their churches or other well known groups. Masons have a ladder of success in the form of the progression for the governing of the lodge as well, though many members never care to engage in that part of the Masonic experience.

http://askafreemason.org/

Another group who allow both men and women and is associated with Freemasonry would be the Eastern Star. This group’s purpose is to provide membership association as well as charitable work for its focus. They operate independently from the Freemasons, with the only requirement that a belief in a supreme being and a focus on Christianity through the story of the  star of Bethlehem.

http://www.easternstar.org/

Another group of Freemasonry related members are the Shriners. One group is men only and one group is ladies only. Today the requirement to join the Shiriners is for the men to be a Mason in good standing. For the ladies, being related to a Mason in good standing is required, along with the usual belief for both groups that you believe in a supreme being and be of good character. Both groups volunteer extensively for charities as well as provide funds for their respective area Shriner’s Crippled and Burn Hospitals. Many retirement age ladies and men have been in these two groups for years but with retirement they fully engage their time and effort for the good causes these groups support, volunteering in ways too numerous to cover.

http://www.shrinersinternational.org/Shriners.aspx

http://www.shrinersinternational.org/en/Shriners/Organization/NewFirstLady.aspx

Habitat for Humanity is another group with many opportunities for retired volunteers. They are faith based but help those in need regardless of their religious affiliation or other characteristics. The help ranges from pure labor to organizational type positions and everything in between for most of the local groups, along with fund raising or donation solicitations.

http://www.habitat.org/where-we-build

                                                        USO, December 1941

Another group with opportunities for retired volunteers is the many veterans groups, not all of which require prior service to become involved. The USO is one of these groups that doesn’t require prior service for volunteering.

http://www.uso.org/ways-to-volunteer.aspx

For prior service members, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars offer many outstanding opportunities for volunteering wither retired or not.

http://www.legion.org/volunteers

http://www.vfw.org/Community/Get-Involved/

One more is the Disabled American Veterans, which runs collection centers where the proceeds go to helping disabled veterans.

http://www.dav.org/volunteers/Opportunities.aspx?gclid=CJPdg5y_-LcCFVMV7AodDUsAlQ

A different focus for helping children is the Senior Corps. This aligns people 55 and older with youth in need of mentoring and other services.

http://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/senior-corps

Many local opportunities for youth engagement can be found at schools too, with after school programs for tutoring or coaching opportunities.

The American Red Cross is another group that has well thought out programs aimed at those over 50 who can focus specialties on disaster relief when needed. Go to their website for the details.

http://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/retired-volunteer-abroad-programs?siteID=Google_Grants_retired_volunteer&gclid=CLS8pPjA-LcCFQho7Aodm0EAbQ

This short and very incomplete list of volunteer friendly groups for older citizens is reflective of not only the need for elderly involvement but the abundant benefits gained by both the volunteers and those on the receiving end.

Life’s steps as we age provides many ladders for us to climb and then move onto another portion of our life experience, one where retirement age eventually makes all of us cross the age of elibibility for AARP, which is technically 50 but most of the groups providing services for AARP don’t activate their participation until 55. 

The opportunities to volunteer through faith based groups abounds, secular groups who don’t specialize in spreading the mostly Christian message but simply help whoever, where ever the needs is found, and even those who are very focused on helping one select group in need such as Special Olympics.

http://www.specialolympics.org/volunteers.aspx

Many of the posts I have provided here on this site already detail the health benefits of networking, social connectivity, positivity, and how face-to-face interactions rather than internet networking can provide enormous life prolonging human benefits to the volunteer.

These attributes associated with volunteering should be included in the retirement planning of every able bodied retired volunteer who wants to enrich their life. 

With the potential for many soon to retire Americans seeing their wealth reduced in the last few years this is one area where a fixed income volunteer can still reap the rewards of a vital life without impacting their monthly budget.

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People living in higher socioeconomic areas are likely to see a wider diversity of bird species in their parks, according to Paige S. Warren, who holds a joint appointment as a research scientist in the Department of Biology at Virginia Tech and the Center for Environmental Studies at Arizona State University. Their work is part of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research Project.

While this is interesting, it is not in itself a reason to volunteer or seek volunteer opportunities just to potentially raise your status, but a result of higher status individuals preferences in the way they maintain their surrounding environment outside their dwelling.

Another example of health related social economic status inequality is found in a study by The National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, May 27, 2004. Meg Gallogly reports that tobacco is the leading cause of death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 Americans every year.  Another 8 million Americans suffer from a smoking-caused disease, disability, and other serious health problems.

From this same study Gallogly continues, “thanks to the tobacco industry’s targeted marketing efforts, lower-income and less educated populations are particularly burdened by tobacco use – low-income people smoke more, suffer more, spend more, and die more from tobacco use. Smoking is directly correlated with income level and years of education. Since the release of the first Surgeon General’s Report on smoking in 1964, smoking has become ever more concentrated among populations with lower incomes and fewer years of education. Whereas the highest income Americans once smoked at levels even greater than the poorest, they now smoke at barely half the rate of those of lowest income.”

These studies suggests that for the highly motivated lower SES persons (often thought of as poor) who want to climb the social status ladder through education, the potential for liberation is possible. Higher education is one method to increasing one’s status, and therefore increasing one’s potential health.

In another study we find the Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health  reporting “a growing body of evidence indicates that socioeconomic status (SES) is a strong predictor of health.  Better health is associated with having more income, more years of education, and a more prestigious job, as well as living in neighborhoods where a higher percentage of residents have higher incomes and more education.”

The mission of the Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health is to enhance the understanding of the mechanisms by which socioeconomic factors affect the health of individuals and their communities. Furthermore, the Network reported “With a few exceptions, disease is more prevalent and life expectancy shorter the lower one is in the SES hierarchy.”

In another example of social capital in action, the State of Utah has enacted The Social Capital Formation Act of 1996 as part of welfare reform. The purpose of the Social Capital Formation Act is to promote the availability of social capital in Utah. The act defines social capital as “the value provided to the state by civic organizations.” This means volunteers of America or at least in Utah are targeted for support! This program is promoting volunteering in civic groups as a solution, which is something that the empowered volunteer will hopefully take country wide.

According to the Utah statute, “using social capital, clients of and applicants for services . . . may receive a wide array of services and supports that cannot be provided by state government alone.” The act encourages government efforts to strengthen civic agencies and establishes a process whereby DWS will assess individual applicant’s needs and may refer them to civic agencies. In the act, however, the Legislature also “recognizes the constitutional limits of state government to sustain civic institutions that provide social capital.”

Furthermore, the Utah report stated that, “President George W. Bush’s recent initiative on faith based and community organizations appears to have many similarities to Utah’s social capital law. The federal government may become more involved in this area, but the federal program is not yet well developed.”

A significant source of vital information on social capital can be found on the  Saguaro Web site at http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/saguaro. The Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America is an ongoing initiative of Professor Robert D. Putnam at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. “The project focuses on expanding what we know about our levels of trust, social connectedness, and community engagement and focuses on strategies to increase this engagement.”

Furthermore, this study has quantified many aspects of social capital. It is a study of fraternal and civic groups in Indiana, along with other social capital achieving groups. This study would be beneficial to all empowered volunteers who wish to understand more about this field and the implications involved. I highly recommend this information be included in any SWOT analysis for groups, which can find correlations with which to work with.

Lastly, one of the many ways someone can on an individual basis attempt to improve their status and their social capital is through joining groups which help to improve their members as well as creating platforms for their mutual benefit. An example, one of many that could be listed is the group Toastmasters International. This group promotes the individual experience of public speaking, something which is usually not taught in America’s high schools to any extent. This group not only promotes public speaking, they have a highly structured system that teaches the subject, with many opportunities for practicing the art!

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Social network world wide

Michael Marmot, in his book “The Status Syndrome, How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity” makes the case through massive data gleaned from many sources over 30 years that health can be determined by social status, with the level of integration of a society as a predictor of the health of that society.

This idea was first predicted by pioneering Sociologist Durkheim and while now called Social Capital many studies find the connection valid as a predictor of social health as well as potential aid for the individual participant to learn from and apply for their own lives.

In other words, the better connected a society is the better the level of trust and the better the health of the society as a whole would be expected. This does not always mean the rich are expected to have better health on the macro level or whole society level. Many other things enter into this line of thinking. How close an individual is to others in society for instance plays a huge role in their life expectancy.

Life expectancy can also be extended as a society during wars as demonstrated by Amartya Sen who found that in Britain during the war years an increase in life expectancy existed and was thought to be from the positive effects on societies’ social integration which directly reflected mortality rates.  War brought folks together in a way that focused their efforts and their common cause, resulting in longer life for society as a whole despite the deaths from the war.

Durkheim, a father of Sociology studied social integration from religious, domestic, and political points of view with regards to suicide rates. His findings supported his conclusions that the more integrated a society was the less the rate of suicide would be. Specifically in 19^th century Europe he found that Protestant countries in Europe were often found to have higher rates of suicide than countries where the population was mostly Catholic.

In general the rates of suicide were even lower for Jewish populations. His conclusions from these studies were that the strong and unified society for the Jewish population and also for the Catholic population supported people and resulted in lower suicide rates than the Protestant populations where a more individualist approach to life was observed.

Please note this does not endorse one religion over another, it cites how populations in specific countries implemented their respective religions and how that part of their lives impacted their health.

Durkheim went on to study the effects of marriage on populations and the effects of war on total population suicide rates as well. He concluded that social integration was one of the biggest factors in not only the health of a population but in the individuals as well. Now called social capital and studied for the last 30 years or so before Marmot’s book in 2004, social integration can be applied by the individual confidently for both status raising health impact as well as strategies for health improvement through social connections.

The bottom line is that individuals can do things to increase their social status. They can do things to increase their social capital.

They can also significantly raise their health expectations by positively driving these aspects of their lives!

If you take the proper actions, you can improve your chances of not only extending your life but having a better quality of life. Many people would expect that the rich would as a society outlive the poorer societies. Money is not the single best predictor of longer life however when it comes to societies.

Ichiro Kawaichi from Harvard University was a researcher who took on this question on the relationship between the differences in social capital and the good or low health expectations. His team used surveys to quantify the level of trust in groups and then looked for the expected results of health levels. Societies that can be viewed as high in social cohesion like Japan who is rich, Kerala which is poor, or in the middle like Costa Rica have better health than others with equal wealth but less social cohesion, concludes Marmot in his book, The Status Syndrome. So the amount of money of a society is less a predictor of health than many people would think.

Another aspect to health is the impact on individuals who have low control over their lives, or at least a perception of that low control.

Marmot writes, “Furthermore, the greater the degree of inequality of material deprivation and of income, the worse the health”. Low control was the link in this issue between health and living poor. Generally speaking, the poor view their lives as having less control and the well-off view their lives as having more control over their individual decisions.

This concept of health and income inequality with regards to an aging population is something we in the United States will confront in greater degrees in our future as our economies seem to be driving a greater economic wedge between the poor and the rich. Can government policy changes help overcome the health disparities predicted or perhaps resulting from the poor who have low control over their lives and yet will be entering the government health care system at greater rates in the next few years?

This post is right now concerned with the individual and how that member of society can positively impact their potential future health by making changes in their lives. These changes need to be cost effective and also not barred by social status. They need to be within the reach of the normal American. I believe the studies cited in this post reflect that potential for the normal American to positively impact their lives. These studies and many others show an individual’s health impact positively improving by increasing social connections. This is one reason for someone to join a group!

The empowered volunteer’s mission is to help people understand the benefits of joining their respective group.

In short, the stage is set for the Empowered Volunteer to take charge of their lives and reap the potential impact on their health and mental wellbeing while helping others find their way towards these same benefits. This is truly a win-win situation.

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