Cecily O'Connor
RedwoodAge.com
About six years ago, Jose-Pablo Fernandez began an experiment aimed at teaching computer skills to Hispanic parents in Texas, hoping to equip them with marketable skills and strategies to encourage their children to stay in school.
His program hit a nerve, and that interest has helped to expand it into more than 100 schools and community centers in Houston, San Antonio and Beaumont. It's now being expanded to Dallas, and replicated in community colleges.
The program was one of last year's winners of the Purpose Prize, an award from Civic Ventures for adults over 60 who are leading various social initiatives.
The nonprofit group, which encourages people to share their experience for social benefit, is taking nominations until March 1 for this year's award. Civic Ventures will name up to six $100,000 winners and up to a dozen $10,000 winners, said associate director Alexandra Kent.
Organizers of the prize are expected to vet as many as 1,200 applications. Winners are selected by a committee of leaders in business, politics, journalism, the arts and the nonprofit sector.
Applicants will be judged on criteria such as what kind of impact a given initiative has had on the community, as well as its potential to be replicated in other areas, both inside and outside the US. They will also look at what kind of leadership role the nominee has contributed. The prize is supported by The Atlantic Philanthropies and the John Templeton Foundation.
"We've been looking for all kinds of applications," Kent said. "The program is here to highlight the fact that there are opportunities for people over 60."
An engineer by training, Fernandez said his desire to become a social entrepreneur was ignited when he worked as a photographer in Mexico. After relocating to Houston in 1998, Fernandez became the executive director of the city's Mexican Cultural Institute two years later and became inspired by educational needs in the community.
"In the back of my mind was to one day do something for the community," said Fernandez, 63. "There are things that you did and that you saw and wanted to fix, and then [opportunities to do so] materialize in the future. I thought, 'I have the time, the resources and the experience. Let's put them to work.'"
Encore Careers
Fernandez is one of many adults who have begun "encore careers" in
the second half of life. Most of the work is aimed at the community, enacting
social changes in a wide range of issues, from education and health care to
global warming and poverty.
Boomers between the ages of 44 and 62 are ripe for the picking by nonprofit organizations as they approach retirement age and look for jobs with a social mission. Half of adults between 50 and 70 say they are interested in taking jobs that help improve the quality of life in their communities, according to a MetLife survey.
Fernandez said any boomer considering initiating a community outreach program should "go for it, and start with a pilot project."
"Start doing it with any resources you have," he said. "We started with one school, and then grew to more than 100 schools. You will feel something so incredible, so rewarding that you will love doing it and taking it to another dimension."
