Category Archives: News

Serve America Act: Request for Public Input

Now that the Serve America Act has been passed by Congress and signed by President Obama, the Corporation for National and Community Service is looking for public input on how to:

  • Attract people of all ages to serve
  • Promote more service
    programs focused on education, healthy futures, clean energy, veterans
    and economic opportunity
  • Stimulate new partnerships, both within the
    government sector and with businesses and foundations, for greater impact
  • Identify and nurture new programs that can host additional AmeriCorps slots
  • Better demonstrate impact
  • Preserve the diversity of
    programs and the localized nature of solutions
  • Implement the Serve America Fellows, Encore Fellows and Silver Scholarship programs

They are holding public sessions in which people who sign up can speak. Sign up for a session by clicking a link below.

May 20th – Washington DC

May 22 – Boston

May 27 – Salt Lake City

May 28 – New Orleans

If you cannot attend, you can email your comments to [email protected],

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Poverty or Pension?

Many retirees these days are revisiting their retirement and pension plans to see if they’ll have enough funds to weather the global recession. In Canada, 35% of seniors receive the federal Guaranteed Income Supplement benefit, which ensures that individuals receive a minimum annual income (including Old Age Security benefits) of at least $13,683. This level is still below the level set by the government as the deemed poverty level ($15,336 for 2008). CARP is now proposing that the government

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Age is No Excuse

Richard and Louise Guy, a couple in their 90s who live in Calgary, Alberta will be celebrating this Earth Day by climbing the 802 steps of the Calgary Tower. These 91 and 92-year-old participants in the annual Alberta Wildnerness Association’s fundraiser (the Climb and Run for Wilderness) will be honoured by the organization this year with the establishment of the Richard Guy Award for Most Climbs by a Senior Male. Read more about their inspirational story.

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Serene Ambition on Alltop

Our blog posts are now featured in the seniors section of Alltop, an online magazine rack that brings together top news and information from across the internet. The Top Seniors News page aggregates news feeds from various sites and displays the five most recent items under each site’s name. Just click on any link, and you’ll be redirected to that item.

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Multigenerational Living and Women’s Hearts

According to research recently announced in the April issue of Heart, women who live in multigenerational households have double the risk of experiencing a coronary event as women who only live with a spouse. Iso of Osaka University in Japan studied 91,000 Japanese men and women between 40 and 69 years old for 11 years. They examined the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) in relation to living arrangements, and found that men were not affected by living in multigenerational households.

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Serve America

What made America strong in the past (citizens actively helping their neighbours) could possibly make America strong again. There is a bill moving through the Congress, the Hatch-Kennedy
Serve America Act, that is bringing Republicans and Democrats together.
The Act puts a whole new perspective on national and community service: government
would provide infrastructure support to community groups recruiting and
training volunteers. This has the potential

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The Stimulus Plan: Proposed Tax Cuts

The proposed Economic Stimulus Plan includes $300 billion in tax cuts. What can this mean for individual seniors? 

  • Anyone earning less than $75,000/year gets a $400 tax cut (to a limit of $800/household).
  • Anyone receiving Social Security (including the disabled, older veterans and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries) qualifies to receive a one-time $250 payment.  
  • Anyone who qualifies as ‘working poor’ will receive an expanded earned income

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Cohousing

Multigenerational communities, multigenerational households and multigenerational cohousing. There seems to be a real move afoot away from the large subdivisions of single family homes and a heavy reliance on cars. And as the effects of the economic crisis deepen, these types of intentional living arrangements are receiving more interest. Cohousing is a type of intentional community (a community planned, designed and built for people who are committed to living together in community) in which

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