care for migrants, increase opportunities for mentally retarded youngsters, improve services for patients in mental hospitals, and provide other important services. Not the least of the benefits would be increased opportunities for the Older American to serve his lessfortunate fellows.

EDUCATION

Education offers many opportunities for an adult to continue as part of the community. One of the less obvious but important values of preretirement education is the reminder to persons approaching full retirement that education for education's sake can be stimulating and enjoyable. Some older people welcome the chance to learn a new language, to be guided into greater appreciation of music or art, or to experience for the first time the joy of painting, modeling, orchestration, or discussion. Basic elementary education, when classes are offered in convenient neighborhood locations, is eagerly accepted by older adults who lacked educational opportunities when they were growing up.

Colleges and universities, community colleges, and public school adult education agencies in several States are offering courses especially designed to meet these increased needs. Many libraries have developed special services and programs for their older patrons.

For the majority of older Americans, the financial barriers to continuing education must be removed or drastically lowered-if all who want to follow this road to a place in the community are to have the opportunity to do so.

CITIZENSHIP

Citizenship activities offer other ways for retired persons to remain in the stream of their community life. Citizens' committees, commissions, and boards usually are represented by senior citizens, who serve as conscientious, thoughtful, and wise members. But here again, more retired people are needed, more should make known their eagerness to serve in these ways.

Political activities also suffer from too little participation by senior citizens. People who lacked full opportunity to identify themselves actively with the party of their choice during their earlier years can, in retirement, promote better government, work for greater representation, and make the vote really count in their communities by active participation in their precincts.

Jobs to be done vary from stuffing and addressing envelopes to speech making. Skills vary from the most simple to the most sophisticated. No greater opportunity for participation in community affairs exists than active participation in its political affairs.

CREATIVE ACTIVITY AND RECREATION

Retirement offers unlimited opportunities to enjoy old hobbies or to develop new ones. Retirement also means that people have time to learn and practice new skills in a wide range of arts and crafts, home repair, maintenance, and beautification-things that many peo

Communities are not made just of brick and mortar, of concrete and sand, of board and nail. Communities are made of people needing each other.

The Older American knows this better than most-he made your community. He asks only that he may continue to be part of it-not just a cipher among the brick and the concrete and the board but a person among the people. His voice is needed in community affairs, and he wants to speak. There are jobs to be done in the community, and he is ready to volunteer his services. There are schools in the community, and he wants to learn.

The Older American wants to be an active part of his community, a contributing, participating, sharing partner. He will willingly accept no less. He will ask no more.

ple have wanted to do before but never had the time to do until they retired.

Travel, participation in organizations, and recreation also open up ways for older people to make new friends and meet new people. One of the demonstrated values of senior citizen centers is the chance they offer many older persons to find new interests after retirement. Many persons no longer feel at loose ends after being welcomed into an activity center. The companionship, acceptance, and interest of his peers are often all that an older person needs to renew his interest in life and the world around him.

For some, the extent of their participation is limited by fear of involvements that will make too many personal demands on their time or energies. They may go no further than thumbing through the available reading material or listening to a discussion or watching a movie. But gradually, the warmth of others' interests brings more response. A card game may be tried-or a simple responsibility accepted. Soon, a satisfying activity is found, and some degree of community participation follows. For many, the centers become the doorways to an active, outgoing role in their community, as a volunteer there or elsewhere, as a participant in political activity, as a student, or as an active church member.

There are now over 700 senior activity centers in the country offering opportunities in arts and crafts, education, and recreation. Similar opportunities are offered by approximately 3,000 clubs sponsored by welfare and recreation departments, local chapters of national voluntary organizations, religious groups, and labor organizations. While there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of such centers since the White House Conference on Aging in January 1961, many more are needed to provide bridges to community participation for the older Americans who have not yet discovered a way to adjust to their new-found leisure.

Someone to Care

One fact stands out as we grow older: The years force our body to pay a toll. We may be rich. We may be poor. We may have the best medical care. We may have none. We may carefully choose our diet. We may not. But, the toll for each added year is inevitable, and the effect is at least a gradual decline in our ability to be active.

Medical science and the other sciences each year are discovering new ways to slow down the decline and new ways to rehabilitate us if we are incapacitated by sickness or injury. But scientific inquiry is a slow and painstaking process, and many of the secrets of life and health are still locked in the vault of time.

Thus, we see among our older Americans several million-mostly in their 70's, 80's, and 90's-whom the toll of the years has made frail and disabled. They need special care and attention to be active at all or to regain lost strength and abilities. They need someone to

care.

Out of their needs and the needs of other older people in the past, special kinds of health services and living arrangements have grown— nursing homes, homes for the aged, home health care, homemaker services, foster homes.

Unfortunately, the need for such services and home arrangements far exceeds the supply, and those available are often very inadequate or too expensive.

The result: Many disabled older Americans are in their own homes when they should be in homes for the aged, or in nursing homes, getting more care and medical attention. At the same time, some are in nursing homes or other institutions when they could be at home if help were available there. Others live with their families because help in their own homes is lacking.

But, with the growth in the number of older people and the realization that they have special needs, the situation is gradually improving.

This is mainly due to an increased interest in disabled older people on the part of States, communities, and private organizations. The Federal Government has played some part and, if several recommendations made recently by President Kennedy are approved by the Congress, will play a bigger part. The President has proposed a 5-year, $144 million program of Federal project, demonstration, and training grants to support pilot projects aimed at developing new and better ways for communities to meet the special needs of their older residents.

The kinds of services and living arrangements for the dependent older person vary widely.

In some cities, a wide variety of service is available to the older person who is well enough to stay at home but too disabled to do such chores as cook, clean, or shop.

Examples of good services, excellent care, effective rehabilitation, coordination of programs and facilities could be cited. But for the

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