Serve America Act will help boomers with midlife career transitions

National service isn't just for kids anymore.

The bipartisan Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which President Barack Obama will sign Tuesday, is the most inclusive and comprehensive national service legislation in our history. With this law in place, federal policy will, for the first time, make national service accessible and inviting for millions who have finished their midlife careers.

This quiet revolution starts with a simple reality: People in their 50s, 60s and 70s will need to, and often want to, work longer than their parents did. Half of them, according to a recent national survey, want encore careers that combine income, meaning and work that matters.

The Serve America Act recognizes how tough that midlife career transition is by creating a dazzling policy innovation — something akin to internships for boomers. These "encore fellowships" will provide people 55 and older access to one-year management or leadership positions that will prepare them for jobs in the public and nonprofit sectors.

Encore fellowships provide real recognition that a new stage of life and work follows the midlife career and that people in this stage of life need bridges and pathways to get from one stage to the next. These fellowships will provide examples and inspiration for other institutions — universities, community colleges, training facilities — that will soon build a thriving marketplace for midlife retooling.

Young people coming out of high school or college often flock to national service programs — like City Year or YouthBuild — to gain experience and make the transition from school to work or continued education. The Serve America Act makes it much easier for those finishing midlife careers to do the same by tripling the number of AmeriCorps positions and reserving 10 percent of them for organizations that engage people age 55 and older.

And the Serve America Act provides two big, new incentives for individuals over 55 and for organizations that can use their experience to find each other.

First, midlifers who participate in AmeriCorps programs for a full year and earn an education award will now be able to use that money for their own continued education or, for the first time, to transfer that money — more than $5,000 in tuition — to their children or grandchildren.

Second, people over 55 who provide a minimum of 350 hours of service to any accredited community organization will earn Silver Scholarships, which provide them with a $1,000 education award that can be used for encore career training — or transferred to their children or grandchildren. A gift twice-over, to be sure.

Perhaps most important, the Serve America Act will stimulate nonprofit organizations to create higher-impact work and service opportunities for those 55 and up, support programs that do enroll older adults, prompt national service programs to recruit more experienced people and encourage the design of programs that take advantage of their talents.

Given the problems facing our nation today, we can't afford to waste experience. The Serve America Act will mark the beginning of a new era, an era in which an aging society delivers more than challenges. It delivers solutions. That's something our kids will thank us for.

John S. Gomperts is president of Civic Ventures, former chief of staff at the Corporation for National and Community Service (home of AmeriCorps) and former CEO of Experience Corps. E-mail: Jgomperts@civicventures.org.