Lifetime Arts is thrilled to announce that its Co-Founder/CEO, Maura O’Malley, has been named 2024 AARP Purpose Prize Award Fellow. The AARP Purpose Prize Award is a national recognition that honors a select group of people aged 50-plus who have proven that they are using their knowledge and life experience to make a difference. As part of this award, Lifetime Arts will receive $10,000 and a year of technical support to help deepen and expand its creative aging work nationally.

“Our Purpose Prize winners and fellows are shining examples of a simple, yet profound truth: When we find our sense of purpose — that certain something that gives us a reason to get up and get going every day — we not only give meaning to our own lives, we make the world a better place for everyone,” said AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins.

In 2008, Maura and her fellow co-founder, Ed Friedman, started Lifetime Arts to shift the narrative of aging from a negative to a positive by promoting a new approach to “senior” programming. As arts administrators and caregivers, they understood that learning, making, and sharing the arts was the key. 

“Creative aging programs intrinsically provide a strong foundation for social relationships and they focus on the powerful role of arts engagement in enhancing quality of life for older adults,” says O’Malley, “Older adult participants find new purpose, new friends, and lasting skills.”

Fifteen years later, Lifetime Arts has grown from a grassroots start-up to the preeminent service organization for creative aging in the U.S. with a growing presence globally. Through partnerships with state agencies, public library systems, senior and veteran services, museums, arts organizations, and others, Lifetime Arts builds leadership and investment to deliver hundreds of creative aging programs for thousands of older adults every year.  

Read AARP’s article about Maura and see a complete list of the AARP Purpose Prize Winners and Fellows on their website. Learn more about Lifetime Arts and its current initiatives.

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