Each year AARP Chapters choose a Day of Service date to work on a community project.  This year our AARP Chapter enjoyed our time together on a project for Warm Hearth Village, a retirement community for all income groups outside our town of Blacksburg, Virginia.  In a cooperative effort, our AARP Chapter members joined with VT Engage and Warm Hearth participants, to build a row of 14 beautiful benches along the Warm Hearth walkways.

VT Engage (a Virginia Tech University Organization) is a university movement started after the tragedy at Virginia Tech last year.  Its mission is to involve townsfolk and college students working together on a common project.  This year the students decided they wanted to build benches or bridges along the paths of our retirement Village.

Our AARP Chapter President, Jo Ann Underwood, a resident of Warm Hearth Village, and students from VT Engage walked off the Warm Hearth Village pathways, meandering through the woods and property imagining where a tired senior would like to sit or cross a stream and came up with a plan for bench locations.  The Warm Hearth Director of Housing, Robbie Hickerson, viewed our plan regarding the benches, and said that the Village was just about to order benches for the Warm Hearth residents.   The benches were ordered and then arrived in boxes of arms, slats and bags of screws.

The mutual Day of Service was set as Saturday, April 12, 2008 for putting together fourteen benches.  With the help of some loyal AARP Chapter members, a couple of folks from Warm Hearth, and the students from Virginia Tech, we all came to Warm Hearth Village for a picnic and a bench building day.  We had some good conversations and meanwhile the job got done.  All Warm Hearth is very happy.   Our AARP Chapter sent the students Certificates of Thanks and a note of appreciation for their efforts.   We hope to keep in touch with these students when they return in the fall.  And we all had a wonderful and productive time!!