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Discover the Lasting Rewards of Volunteering With AARP in Your State
These retirees are using their time and talents to strengthen communities
AARP volunteer Arlene Rieber at the AARP Tucson Information Center in Arizona.
Cassidy Araiza
The right volunteer role starts with a cause you care about and a way to put your time, skills or experience to use.
For people who volunteer with the AARP office in their state, that can mean turning personal experience into action close to home. These volunteers might help their neighbors spot and avoid fraud, talk to lawmakers about the need for affordable housing, staff community events or connect older adults with resources that could improve their lives.
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“Volunteers are at the heart of AARP’s work,” says Michelle Bencote-Jackson, vice president for AARP’s Office of Volunteer Engagement. “Every day, they serve as advocates, educators, leaders and trusted voices in their communities, helping bring our mission to life across the country.”
The work is practical, but it is also personal. For many volunteers, helping others brings purpose, connection and a reason to stay engaged.
Volunteers Across States
Want to know more about AARP state volunteers? Here are more profiles to check out.
- Indiana: Robyn Grant, 69
- Maryland: Karen Morgan, 70
- Minnesota: Courtney Burton, 67
- Missouri: Marli Klumb, 73
- New York: Annie Stevenson-King, 89
- South Carolina: Jon Ruoff, 77
A 2026 study published in the journal Emotion found that people who performed three acts of kindness for others each week were less depressed, anxious and lonely after two weeks. A 2025 study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine noted that adults 51 and older who volunteered showed fewer signs of cellular aging than those who did not.
Even modest volunteering, as little as one to 49 hours a year, was linked to slower aging. The strongest benefits showed up among retirees who volunteered about one to four hours a week.
AARP offers many ways to get involved, depending on the causes that matter most to you. Volunteers can help children become stronger readers, assist taxpayers with low to moderate incomes, support family caregivers, teach technology skills, promote safer driving and build more age-friendly communities.
Create the Good connects people with volunteer opportunities from AARP and other organizations, in person or from home. Contact your state’s AARP office about volunteering there.
“Volunteers’ time, talents and dedication extend our reach, strengthen our programs and help connect people to the resources, information and support they need,” Bencote-Jackson says. “Simply put, the impact AARP makes in communities would not be possible without the extraordinary contributions of our volunteers.”
Learn more about five AARP volunteers who are making a difference in their own backyards:
Arizona: Arlene Rieber, 93
Despite being in her 90s, Arlene Rieber doesn’t know when she’ll really retire to a quiet life. She’s too busy answering questions from callers and walk-ins at AARP Arizona’s Tucson Information Center.
The center provides a spate of resources, from AARP Driver Safety classes to caregiver support groups to board-game days. Rieber plays a key role at the center — managing volunteer schedules, making sure resource materials are up to date and ensuring there’s always a fresh pot of coffee.
“I can’t seem to give up the ship,” she says. “I still feel like I’m contributing something to the world.”
In her professional life, Rieber ran a preschool nursery, taught middle and high school students, and worked with teens who were homeless. When she retired from her job, she decided to volunteer helping a new age group — her own.
If the information center is supposed to have an event but a volunteer is sick, Rieber makes sure the doors are open herself.
She even helps educate AARP staffers about all the work the center does.
“She basically taught me the ropes,” says Angela Schultz, an AARP community outreach director who oversees the center’s volunteers. “She is just always willing to go the extra mile for people. For anybody.”
Read Rieber’s full profile here.
Florida: Thayra “Tye” Hausheer, 64
For Thayra “Tye” Hausheer, one of the biggest challenges in volunteering is time — and finding enough of it.
Hausheer lives in Miami and recruits, trains and manages about 100 active volunteers throughout Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties. She does it all as a volunteer herself, spending about 20 hours a week to increase AARP’s visibility by reaching out to Floridians age 50 and older. She wants them to know how AARP assists both veterans and caregivers — and how it helps people navigate Social Security and Medicare. She also coordinates AARP activities with a half-dozen other organizations where she volunteers, with a significant focus on veterans. She’s also a member of the AARP Florida Executive Council.
How does she do it all?
“Just picture an octopus,” Hausheer says with a laugh.
Adds Yessenia Perez, an associate state director of outreach and engagement for AARP in South Florida: “She’s a ball of energy.”
Read Hausheer’s full profile here.
AARP Oregon volunteer Sandy Grzeskowiak checks Eric Burlingame, left, and Jisinia Murphy in at the Century Clackamas Town Center in Oregon.
Sol Neelman
Oregon: Sandy Grzeskowiak, 79
Sandy Grzeskowiak is a long-serving, dedicated volunteer for AARP Oregon. And while she helps people in multiple ways — dipping her toes into issues like walkable cities, caregiving and activities tailored to older adults — one of the people she helps is … Sandy Grzeskowiak.
“I get out of it more than I give,” she says. Whatever the topic, people are grateful to find out they’re not alone — and they convey that to her. “It’s just totally a rewarding thing, and I definitely feel appreciated,” she adds.
Grzeskowiak is a retired middle school math teacher. A typical month might involve her working in the AARP state office on presentation materials and inventory, organizing and hosting AARP Movies for Grownups outings at a local theater, screening calls for a telephone town hall or simply staffing an AARP table at a community event.
Grzeskowiak has “done the A to Z” of what you could ask of a volunteer, says AARP Oregon State Director Bandana Shrestha. She adds that Grzeskowiak is “like a little snapshot of the experience of aging and aging well. I hope I’ll be Sandy one day.”
Read Grzeskowiak’s full profile here.
AARP volunteer Steve Orso (right) speaks to veteran Larry Lembach during a baseball game in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Rachel Wisniewski
Pennsylvania: Steve Orso, 69
Steve Orso stumbled into being an AARP volunteer. He took some personal documents to an AARP shredding event and ended up so intrigued, he was working as a volunteer at the next event.
“I was there being cheerful and helpful and getting stuff out of people’s cars and helping prevent identity theft and decluttering their lives,” he says.
Orso retired in 2012 after decades in information technology, and now he puts that tech experience to work as a volunteer. He has created instruction manuals for iPads. He serves as the AARP liaison to the Northampton County Digital Navigator Coalition, which works to close the digital divide.
For Orso, volunteering has provided him the environment he needed to create a new life after his wife’s death in 2021. “That’s really the treasure for me because when I was working, and certainly when I was younger, I was not particularly social,” Orso says. “It’s a good group of people, and it’s also nice to do some things that make a difference in the world.”
Read Orso’s full profile here.
David Garza, an volunteer for AARP San Antonio, throws out the opening pitch before a San Antonio Missions baseball game in Texas.
Christopher Lee
Texas: David Garza, 74
Advocacy is in David Garza’s blood.
The AARP Texas volunteer grew up in a San Antonio family where civic responsibility was expected, especially from a mother active in the PTA, church and community.
“By the time we were considered responsible, we were expected to volunteer,” says Garza, who built a decades-long career in housing.
In the 1990s, he served as housing director for the state of Texas. And in the 2000s, as the city of San Antonio’s neighborhood action director, he focused on helping low- and moderate-income residents secure and improve housing.
Now retired, Garza has put his experience in public service to good use as an AARP Texas volunteer advocate. He’s pushed for an affordable housing bond in San Antonio, educated political candidates about issues important to older Texans and urged state lawmakers to bolster nursing home regulations.
Garza’s pitch to others considering volunteering with AARP: “Take a good look at what we do at AARP, and you’ll find that AARP is working for you whether you know it or not. It would be nice if you got involved and helped spread the word.”
Read Garza’s full profile here.
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AARP Director of State News Chris Adams, AARP Senior Editor Misty Williams and AARP Editor Keith Harriston contributed to this story.
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