AARP Foundation Programs
Women Helping Others and Ourselves
Women share a common desire to grow older with dignity and enjoy financial independence while maintaining a connection to family, friends and community. AARP members, volunteers and donors, through Foundation programs, leverage AARP's national reputation to enhance the quality of life for all people as they age.
The AARP Foundation is the charitable organization of AARP. The AARP Foundation volunteers, donors and staff share a commitment to helping all women, particularly women at risk. The Foundation's programs are important to women. Some women look to the programs for help while others donate to help support the programs.
Our programs provide direct services, education and information to millions of people, most of whom are women. We work to insure that women 50+ will have independence, choice and control in their lives through programs in economic security, health and supportive services and livable communities.
Economic Security
AARP's Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP)
In communities across the country, AARP staff and volunteers help thousands of people update skills and help with placements that translate to needed jobs and income. Seventy percent of SCSEP enrollees are women-more than 7,000 at any given time. The typical client is a 70-year-old single woman who must support herself because savings and assets are not sufficient for full retirement.
A woman entered a local SCSEP office looking for work. She had custody of two of her teen-aged grandsons and was told that if she didn't have a job she would have to go on welfare. We were able to place her in a job the same day. She did so well that she was awarded Employee of the Month. SCSEP also helped one of the grandsons find a part-time job.
Tax-Aide
Every year, more than 1.2 million women benefit from Tax-Aide programs located in communities across the country. These mostly 60+ women represent 64 percent of Tax-Aide's customers, whose tax returns are prepared at no charge by AARP volunteers. Most - 77 percent - of all Tax Aide customers have incomes below $30,000. For them, even a modest tax refund means more money for groceries, prescriptions or utilities.
Seattle celebrates the oldest AARP Tax-Aide volunteer in the country. Kay is 91 and has served as an accountant since 1965. Both clients and co-workers praise her work, "She's fantastic. She's unbelievable."
Reverse Mortgage Education
Millions of people are using the equity in their homes to stay in their homes as they age. AARP's educational and counseling services around mortgage and less risky refinancing options serve more than 100,000 each year - 57 percent of those served are women.
Money Management
AARP volunteers are trained to work with older people with who have difficulty budgeting, paying bills and keeping track of financial matters and who have no family or friends able to help. The majority of those helped in the program are older women who, because of this program, remain independent in their homes.
Margie has a disability that left her unable to leave her house. All she has is her dog, the television and a lot of mail order catalogues. She started ordering items from the catalogue that would help her around the house and occupy her time. By the time Money Management was notified, Margie had $40,000 of debt. A volunteer assisted Margie in declaring bankruptcy and in setting up a budget. Last month, Margie was able to visit her out-of-state daughter for the first time in ten years.
Financial Fraud Protection
Our programs fight financial exploitation of older Americans in several ways. First, the Foundation's programs work directly with people who call seeking help and then we also collaborate with several call centers that engage trained volunteers to work directly with consumers to alert them to scam techniques, primarily those linked to fraudulent wire transfer services. Sixty-one percent of the consumers helped by these programs are women.
Health and Supportive Services
Benefits Outreach
The National Council on Aging BenefitsCheckUp website, sponsored in part by AARP, helps users develop an individualized and confidential assessment of the public benefits for which they may be eligible, including information on the new Medicare Part D. AARP volunteers offer assistance to seniors with questions or who do not have access to the internet.
AARP West Virginia Senior Medicare Information & Error Patrol Project
Professional volunteers educate their peers in an effort to create informed Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries. The program instills participants--60 percent are women--with the ability to recognize suspicious activity on their Medicare Summary Notices and a system to report the suspected information.
Grandparent Information Center
AARP Foundation's Grandparent Information Center (GIC) offers web-based information, referrals to grandparents' support groups and agencies, research about grandparenting, as well as support for AARP state offices and affiliated educational groups focused on expanding the rights of grandparents who find themselves in these new roles.
Litigation
Technical Support for Legal Hotlines
Seventy one percent of the callers or more than 38,000 women, most of them 60 +, are helped by legal hotlines each year. They get help with debt management, consumer fraud, Medicaid benefits, guardianship of grandchildren, nursing home standards, wills, or advance directives.
A Legal Hotline received a call from a recently widowed woman with a physical condition that left her forgetful. The woman had bought a car from a local used car lot where the sales tactics were so pressured they chauffeured her around to insurance companies to find high-risk insurance, even though she told the sales person that she couldn't afford it. When she called the Hotline, she had an unwanted car and payment obligations that totaled 62% of her monthly Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI) income. Attorneys volunteering with a Legal Hotline used consumer protection laws to cancel the contracts and return the car. With technical support from the AARP Foundation, many legal hotlines are able to provide much needed assistance to older Americans.
Litigation
AARP Foundation Litigation attorneys advocate in the federal and state courts on behalf of women. The AFL works to improve women's lives in the areas of health, prescription drugs long-term care, age and disability discrimination in employment, pensions and employee benefits, consumer protection and predatory lending and rights of low-income persons.
AARP Programs
The AARP Foundation also supports other programs important to women that are carried out by AARP, including: Drivers Safety, an eight-hour refresher course for 50+ that covers normal changes in vision, hearing, reaction time and techniques for compensating for the changes; Workforce Initiative, which targets employers to expand employment opportunities for people 50+; and AARP's work around livable communities which allow people 50+ independence and engagement.
