AARP --- Service Essay

I was pretty sure no other Senior would be submitting this topic for the Essay on Service for Create The Good because it is tremendously challenging to get folks to even understand what Community Access TV is.  So this is what I have been doing and will continue to do unless something better comes my way. I might as well share this since I took the time to prepare it.  I look forward to voting on the top 7 of 1800 submissions to Create The Good.
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Volunteering is now Full-Time: Helping Community TV Make a Difference for those Making a Difference

In 2011, I was transformed from a volunteer community media administrator type lynchpin (advisory boards, bylaws, policies) into a front-line volunteer: discovering, capturing, producing and sharing the stories of other lynchpin Seniors who have kept the engines of service and democracy going in my town. Unplanned early retirement was the trigger for this change. I now have the flexibility to Make TV for my Community Access Station.

From Janice the Grange Fair coordinator for 50 plus years to the two couples keeping the Wallingford Historical Society tours going and bells ringing on the 4^th of July since 1962; to Nancy whose Community Dinner idea some thirty years ago is critical for these times; to Rich who opened the DryDock Sober Café, turning his retirement into helping others do better with what he struggled with – addiction; to the Holy Joes’ Café, getting coffee to Service Chaplains, a story that was to end with the end of the wars; to Cheryl’s Soup Kitchen et.al ministry Masters’ Manna whose clients tripled…to Citizen Mike a local commentary show that is now an integral part of the community conversation: I have been part of getting these, and other stories, told digitally.

All of these passionate 55 and much over folks, doing their thing and wishing they had more people doing it with them, are strangers to new media. They want to wisely transition their legacy to the current ‘new media’ generation. My story is about telling theirs and making these connections in my town (Wallingford,CT).
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If you wish to join me, I did post the volunteer opportunity on this site as well. It is to appear here within the next 48 hrs.