Washington Post Health Columnist Abigail Trafford
Includes Experience Corps in New Book, ‘MY TIME’

Annette Mitchell, a long-time member of Experience Corps, found her calling in what Washington Post health columnist Abigail Trafford calls “my time,” that “period of personal renaissance inserted somewhere after middle age, but before old age.”

“Retired unexpectedly” at age 56 when her government job was eliminated, Mitchell had no plans. “After two or three months,” she says, “I was climbing the walls.” After years of unrewarding part-time work, she heard about Experience Corps from a friend. It was the perfect match.

Mitchell has been an Experience Corps member, tutoring children at Montgomery Elementary School in Northwest Washington, D.C., for four years now and, Trafford writes, “she’s never been so happy.”

“’I intend to stay here for a long time,’ [Annette tells Trafford]. ‘I love it. The thing is, you’re helping others. I couldn’t get over the fact that the kids come out of high school and they are not able to read. If I can get a kid to read in kindergarten and get that start – it’s fulfilling.’”

Trafford adds: “Fulfilling for the kids. Fulfilling for the country. And fulfilling for Annette.”

A long-time reporter and editor at the Washington Post, Trafford writes that, “The emergence of an older, more vigorous population is the most significant social story of our time.”

Trafford’s book, My Time: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life (Basic Books, 2004), zooms in on “my time” – the “new stage…not old age.” She also calls it the “bonus decades,” “second adolescence,” and the “Indian summer phase of life.”

“By 2010, there will be eighty-five million Americans between the ages of 50 and 75, nearly one-third of the population,” she writes, many with the time, health, and relative wealth to do something completely new.

“We’re looking forward to expanding Experience Corps as quickly as we can,” notes CEO John Gomperts. “We want to be ready to help these millions of Americans put some of their newfound time into helping solve our country’s most pressing problems. We expect they’ll find it as challenging and rewarding as Annette does.”

Today more than 1,000 Experience Corps members serve as tutors and mentors to children in urban public schools in a dozen cities across the country. Experience Corps members help teach children to read and develop the confidence and skills to succeed in school and in life.
My Time: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life can be purchased in local bookstores or ordered online through any online bookseller, including www.amazon.com.

# # #

Experience Corps…new adventures in service for Americans over 55.