About the Initiative

The Harvard School of Public Health—MetLife Foundation Initiative on Retirement and Civic Engagement has launched a national campaign to change public attitudes toward aging and motivate boomers and retirees to engage in community service. The campaign will also challenge the Hollywood creative community to re-think current portrayals of older people in film and television.

The campaign is an outgrowth of a major report, Reinventing Aging: Baby Boomers and Civic Engagement, published June 2004, by the Harvard School of Public Health—MetLife Foundation Initiative. This Initiative is a project of the School's Center for Health Communication.

Organizations participating in the initiative include AARP, Civic Ventures, Corporation for National & Community Service, Experience Corps, Generations United, The National Council on the Aging, Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network, and Temple University's Center for Intergenerational Programs.

About the Center for Health Communication

The Center for Health Communication of the Harvard School of Public Health has created a series of national media campaigns to promote the adoption of healthy behaviors. The Center's National Designated Driver Campaign demonstrated how a new social concept—the designated driver—could be rapidly introduced through mass communication, promoting widespread adoption of a social norm that the driver does not drink. The Center's Harvard Mentoring Project, a national media campaign conducted in collaboration with leading media companies and nonprofit organizations, recruits volunteer mentors for at-risk youth. The Center is developing a new campaign to change public attitudes toward aging and recruit older boomers as community volunteers. More information about the Center is available at www.hsph.harvard.edu/chc.

About MetLife Foundation

MetLife Foundation was established in 1976 by MetLife to carry on its longstanding tradition of corporate contributions and community involvement. Grants support health, education, and civic and cultural programs throughout the United States. In the area of aging, the Foundation funds programs that promote mental fitness, encourage civic involvement, and create public awareness of health issues such as Alzheimer's disease. Recent civic-engagement projects include the National Council on Aging Wisdom Works Initiative, which is designed to increase civic engagement by older people working in volunteer teams to address community needs and the MetLife Foundation Older Adults Enrich America Community Awards, which celebrate the accomplishments of volunteers age 55 and older. To help nonprofit organizations understand the characteristics and motivations of volunteers, MetLife Foundation sponsored the Giving and Volunteering survey series of the Independent Sector, including four special reports on older adults. For more information about the Foundation, please visit the Web site at www.metlife.org.