After Retirement, Finding a ‘Second Career’ as a Volunteer
On an October day, Anne Davis, 76, wheeled into her Midtown Manhattan cubicle wearing a bright red coat, with her strawberry-blond hair cut short, and took a turn at a sharp angle to reach her desk.
Ms. Davis has not walked in 30 years, about a decade after she was told she had multiple sclerosis. And then in 2003, Ms. Davis, a former lawyer for CBS, learned she had invasive cancer. And so her weeks filled with chemotherapy and physical therapy appointments, in addition to her work in a second career — this time as a volunteer financial counselor.
On this day, she prepared for a hectic afternoon, reviewing scheduled appointments with clients over the next month.
As a Financial Coaching Corps volunteer, Ms. Davis is among 2,500 volunteers in the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, sponsored by Community Service Society, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.
R.S.V.P. matches volunteers — often retirees, and all of whom are at least 55 years old — with more than 350 nonprofits across New York City. It also has several signature programs, including the Financial Coaching Corps and a mentoring program for children who have a parent in prison.
Founded in 2007, the Financial Coaching Corps has 34 volunteers who, in the past five years, have advised almost 4,000 New Yorkers on their finances, helping them hone their money management skills. The goal is to give them control over their personal finances and allow them to work toward economic security.
And for the past decade, despite health scares and cancer treatments, Ms. Davis has spent every Friday working with people in dire financial straits. Her desk is neat, with a rack of organized colored folders, each with their own label: “Dispute Letters,” “Credit Report Requests” and “Budget Forms.” She has helped clients with debt management, improving their credit scores, and those recovering from identity theft. Along the way, she has forged relationships with the people she has helped.
In August 2013, a retired woman with $10,000 in arrears and credit card debt came to Ms. Davis for guidance. Over two years, Ms. Davis helped her pay off her debt. She also suggested that the woman sell her two-bedroom apartment and downsize to a one-bedroom apartment in the same building. The move provided her with a $50,000 savings nest egg and some financial security. They still meet — not to discuss finances, but for lunch and afternoons spent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
And the first client to sit at her desk, in spring 2007, still visits often, Ms. Davis said. The former client, who is legally blind and lives in public housing, receives social security and insists that she still needs Ms. Davis’s financial expertise.
“But, really, we just chat,” Ms. Davis said with a smile.
For Ms. Davis, who also takes French lessons and volunteers her legal services at the New York City chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, her work with the Financial Coaching Corps is more than having something to do on Fridays.
“The most rewarding part is knowing that you really helped get someone on the right path,” she said.
That same motivation pushed Gloria Perez to start volunteering shortly after she retired. She worked for more than 30 years with the city’s Human Resources Administration, helping people in need of public assistance.
“And then my husband died, and I retired, and I wondered what in the world I was going to do with my life,” Ms. Perez said. That was in 1995, and the answer came later that year in the form of an advertisement. Another program through R.S.V.P., the Advocacy, Counseling and Entitlement Services Project, needed volunteers to work alongside the agency where she had dedicated her entire career.
“When I saw it,” she recalled, “I thought, ‘This is what I’ve been doing all along, so I ought to be able to manage this, too.’”
Founded in 1984, the ACES Project trains volunteers to work as benefit counselors in low-income neighborhoods. It has served more than 28,000 people in the past five years, helping those eligible to sign up for public benefits. Volunteers like Ms. Perez check whether people qualify for benefits, assist them in the application process and make referrals.
More than two decades after joining the program, Ms. Perez, 84, still volunteers for six hours every Wednesday at Queens Hospital Center, in Jamaica. She sets up a table in the lobby for people to inquire about possible benefits.
Many people approach her table to ask how to receive food stamps. Many others simply are not aware of the programs they qualify for, Ms. Perez said.
Signing up for public benefits can involve a lot of red tape and a lot of waiting. But using her insider’s understanding of the system, she said, she once got someone placed in public housing through the city’s Department of Aging within two weeks. The new tenant returned to the hospital to thank Ms. Perez for her help. Another woman received cash assistance the same day she turned in her application.
“This has become my second career,” Ms. Perez said with a laugh, adding that she had no intention of retiring again anytime soon.
P.C: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/nyregion/after-retirement-finding-a-second-career-as-a-volunteer.html
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