In a rousing call to action at the Encore Careers Summit, Gara LaMarche (at left) urged older Americans to heed the call to service that was a hallmark of President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign as well as push for policy changes that will help launch encore careers. His speech is featured on the home page of The Huffington Post.

As president and CEO of The Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the few foundations focused on aging, and as a former leader with Human Rights Watch and other organizations working for positive social change, LaMarche has watched social activism ebb and flow in many countries.

“Make the most of this moment,” he told the audience. “Respond to the call of a new president when he asks what we can do for our country, a country in which many of us are happily surprised to find we take a newfound pride.

Joe James (at left) was inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr., to create opportunities for black farmers in the South. Arlene Blum was outraged when she discovered the chemical that she had fought to have removed from children’s sleepwear was showing up in furniture. Watching his older son receive a law degree, Catalino Tapia was filled with an overwhelming desire to enable other children of Latino immigrants to go to college.

The six $100,000 winners of The Purpose Prize told of different paths to their world-changing roles as they accepted their awards on December 6, but their stories shared a common theme: All would stop at nothing in order to change the system.

“If you’re not making trouble out there, you’re not getting the job done,” said Mark Goldsmith, a former marketing executive who now coaches male inmates at Riker’s Island in skills needed for life after prison. Goldsmith recalled his surprise when a warden praised his efforts, saying, “We don’t know why they’re listening to a white man in a suit, but they’re listening to you.” They were listening to him, Goldsmith said, because “nobody ever talks to these young men.”

A film lighting director invents a peanut-shelling machine in North Carolina – and raises the income of farmers in Africa. A retired language professor organizes volunteers to help thousands of war refugees start a new life -- in Fargo, North Dakota. An immigrant who arrived with $6 in his pocket helps send Latino students to college – with money raised from his fellow gardeners in California.

The 15 recipients of the 2008 Purpose Prize – six $100,000 winners and nine $10,000 winners -- are taking on some of society's biggest challenges, from poverty to pollution and from health care to homelessness. They are also demonstrating that social innovation can spring from an unexpected source: experienced adults over 60.

A new report profiles 10 community colleges that are attracting experienced workers, engaging local employers and helping prepare boomers for meaningful work in the second half of life.

Encore Fellowships are a central feature of both the Serve America Act of 2008, introduced by Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, and the Encore Service Act of 2008, proposed by Senators Chris Dodd and Thad Cochran, along with Kennedy.

Other innovative features in the bills would also help catalyze new solutions to major social challenges by calling Americans of all ages to serve their country and their communities. The two bills have some minor differences in approach, which will be worked out in the inevitably lengthy legislative process.

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are both co-sponsors of the Serve America Act, and both have pledged to sign it into law if elected.

Baltimore’s intergenerational alliance of young people and older adults won a long-awaited victory this week when Mayor Sheila Dixon added $250,000 for the successful reading program to next year’s city budget.

Last month, 85 members of Experience Corps went to the Baltimore City Council to ask for funds to expand the successful program in which 373 senior volunteers help students in 20 Baltimore area schools learn to read. More than a dozen people described Experience Corps’ positive impacts on children, as well as the satisfaction it affords the adults who mentor them.

Gavin Newsom. Photo by Paul Sakuma/Associated Press.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom became the latest political leader to call for the expansion of Experience Corps, the successful tutoring and mentoring program engaging adults over 55, as a way to improve public schools.

Leigh Hoes, 51, trained to become a pharmacy technician in a one-year program at Richland College. She plans to work into her 60s or 70s. Photo by Randy Eli Grothe/Dallas Morning News.

Boomers are “rebooting” at Richland College in Dallas, one of the new wave of community colleges that are reshaping their programs to meet the new needs of career-switching baby boomers.

For the second year in a row, Fast Company magazine recognized Civic Ventures for its innovative approach to promoting encore careers for baby boomers looking for meaningful work.

The awards were given to the “most influential and effective social entrepreneurs who are solving the world’s problems” and the organizations they have helped to create. The winners, Fast Company writes, “use the tools of business to solve the world’s most pressing problems” and “demonstrate a consistent and unusually large impact on society.”

Robert Chambers. Photo by Steve Tripoli/Marketplace.

Robert Chambers has raised approximately $2 million to expand Bonnie CLAC, which finances new car purchases for low-income families, since he was named a Purpose Prize winner in 2006.

Chambers was profiled on Marketplace, the NPR business program, which captured well the “encore moment” when Chambers knew he had to do something different.