Staying Fit
All over the country, millions of older adults with fresh ideas and big hearts are finding unique ways to ease others’ lives.
If you know someone who fits that description, think about nominating him or her for the AARP Purpose Prize, which honors extraordinary individuals age 50+ who use their life experience to make a better world for all. Created by Encore.org, the Purpose Prize found a new home at AARP last year. Over the next few weeks (until May 12), AARP is accepting nominations for this year’s prize, with five $50,000 winners to be announced in September.
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The winners are everyday folks, not celebrities or tech moguls or lottery winners. They’re people like Barbara Chandler Allen, a former art museum administrator. Using art as a lifeline for struggling children, Allen created Fresh Artists, a nonprofit that raises money for desperately needed art supplies for inner-city Philadelphia schools.
Children from kindergarten through 12th grade are invited to donate the use of their artwork, and Fresh Artists reproduces and distributes images of the pieces. (The children keep the original art.) Then, when corporations, businesses, individuals or other organizations make donations to Fresh Artists, they select large-scale reproduction images to display in their offices. A plaque beside each piece credits the young artist and explains Fresh Artists’ concept.
Donors save money on decorating their spaces, and children have the pride of seeing their work prominently displayed and attributed to them.
It’s all part of Allen’s vision of lateral philanthropy: enlisting children as partners to raise funds to help other children create new works of art. Fresh Artists’ collection includes artwork from 389 children.
“Since Allen founded Fresh Artists in 2008, the nonprofit has installed 587 large-format reproductions of children’s artwork and donated art supplies worth more than $100,000 to 272 Philadelphia public schools, reaching more than 53,400 children,” Encore.org notes on its website.
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