Remembering and Honoring with Service

AARP’s Annual Day of Service was scheduled this year on Sept. 11 to bring together volunteers, staff and AARP chapters across Kentucky—and the nation—of all ages making a difference in their communities.

It also marked the launch of AARP’s CreateTheGood.org a new website to allow users to search for local volunteer opportunities, but also will find ideas for serving in more self-directed ways that fit into their lives. The site has how-to videos for simple service projects people can organize on their own, like weatherizing homes, starting walking groups and starting giving circles. Additionally, the new site allows people to submit their own ideas for self-directed service projects, email the site to friends, and post it to their social networks.

As in years past, Sept. 11 was again a day for reflecting on the 2001 terrorist attacks, but it also was a time for hundreds of Kentuckians and tens of thousands of Americans to serve their communities. The September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance is a key part in the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act signed into law by President Obama in April, four months before the Massachusetts senator’s death.

AARP Kentucky staff, chapters and volunteers reached out again and served at locations across the state. In Louisville’s VA hospital, dozens of veterans received handmade (by local elementary school children) get-well-soon cards in a special personal care gift bags, many of the state’s chapters sponsored activities including food drives, delivered meals, conducted outreach on preventing swine flu and helped prepare medical supplies to be shipped overseas. Victims of Louisville’s flash flooding in August were assisted in clearing and cleaning debris and weeks of mold by AARP KY staff, an Americorps Team and NECHAMA (a voluntary Jewish Disaster Relief group).

For those who have engaged in service days regularly for years, the national day of service is one more way to standardize and recognize their efforts on a single day. For those who have never served, it’s an incentive to get involved. And for some of those who have been part of the 9/11 memorials to the lives lost eight years ago, it’s the culmination of a dream.