Older Adult Employees and Employers Honored During Luncheon
(ATLANTA - August 14, 2006) Outstanding employees who are 60+ and their employers from across metro Atlanta were honored today during the annual Metropolitan Atlanta Employee 60+ Awards Luncheon. The event calls attention to the more than 400,000 older adults in the region, a population expected to triple to 1.2 million by 2030.
The event’s top honor – Employee of the Year – went to Floy Ann Henderson, a receptionist at the Rockdale County Senior Service Center for more than 10 years. Atlanta-based Wayfield Food Stores was named Employer of the Year for its commitment to hiring and promoting older workers. Henderson and Wayfield Foods will represent metro Atlanta at the state’s Older Worker Awards Luncheon in August.
“To read through all of the nominations we receive is to truly understand and appreciate the countless contributions older adult workers make every day throughout the region,” said Cathie Berger, chief of ARC’s Aging Services Division.
Henderson, who was born in Decatur and lives in Lithonia, has dedicated her life to helping other people. She volunteers by assisting the homebound with energy assistance and weekly shopping and remains an active member of Antioch AME Church in Stone Mountain. She’s so well known at the senior center in Rockdale for hugging everyone that colleagues and visitors call her “The Hugger.”
“Coming to the center is what keeps me going – doing for others is what keeps me going,” said Henderson, 87. “When I go to bed at night, I know I’ve done something for somebody that day.”
The luncheon also honored five older adults with Distinguished Service Awards recognizing their outstanding achievement as mature workers: Virginia Bradley, a dispatcher for Cobb County Senior Services; Elaine Brooks, a receptionist at the Dorothy C. Benson Senior Multipurpose Complex in Sandy Springs; Barbara Davis, an information and referral specialist for Grandparents Raising Grandchildren at the Kinship Care Resources Center in Clayton County; Marguerite Pazey, a deli supervisor for Publix; and Carolyn Young, a long-term care ombudsman with Atlanta Legal Aid.
Distinguished Service Awards also went to the Cherokee County Board of Elections & Registrations and Grady Health Systems.
Honorable mention went to Judy Bunn, a longtime employee of the Rockdale County Fire Department; Ernest Cowley of Gainesville and Mickey Finn of Atlanta, both Publix employees; and Veronica Sayers, a personal care assistant for Southern Home Care Services. The City of Woodstock also received honorable mention.
The Metro Atlanta Older Worker Project and the Atlanta Regional Senior Employment Collaborative, which consists of the Atlanta Regional Commission; AARP–Foundation–SCSEP; Your Tools for Living, a division of Jewish Family & Career Services; and the National Caucus & Center on Black Aged, sponsored the luncheon in cooperation with Fayette Senior Services, Fulton County Office of Aging, Georgia Department of Human Resources, Georgia Department of Labor, Grand Hyatt Atlanta, Gwinnett Senior Services and Publix Super Markets.
More About Older Adults in Metro Atlanta
The Metropolitan Atlanta Employee 60+ Awards Luncheon calls attention to a critical – and growing – segment of metro Atlanta’s population. The number of older adults in the region has grown over the last decade at a rate slightly higher than the general population, outpacing it in six of the 10 counties in the region. By 2030, older adults will comprise one in five people in metro Atlanta.
According to U.S. Census numbers from 2000, the most current information available, Fulton County is home to the 10-county region’s largest population of older adults, with 69,623. DeKalb is second, with 53,881, followed by Cobb (42,218), Gwinnett (29,430), Clayton (13,840), Cherokee (9,349), Henry (8,777), Fayette (8,224), Douglas (7,003) and Rockdale (6,058).
More information about metro Atlanta’s older adult population. (PDF)
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