I'm a counselor with Age Wise Age Well, which is an AmeriCorps Senior Services program.

There's about 16 counselors involved right now, and we work with people that experience either issues with aging or sometimes loneliness.

We visit with our clients either on the phone or in person, get to know them, and get to know what things they'd like to talk about.

I think the major part of being a counselor is listening.

We're often dealing with physical changes, where people are no longer able to do what they normally used to be able to do.

They have, diseases or physical restrictions.

Sometimes, we deal with people who are caring for folks who have typically dementia, and we help them, with those kinds of struggles.

When people go through changes in life as they get older, they often go through those things alone.

Just having someone to listen, to respond in a way that's nonjudgmental, is very beneficial for folks.

Having a regular person to talk to who's smart, educated, well rounded, and accepting and nonjudgmental, that's a really great thing to be able to depend upon on regular basis.

We have great resources, thanks to the whole organization, so we can refer people to different organizations or agencies that might be able to do even more than we can do just with the listening.

Volunteering with an organization like Age Wise Age Well really gives you a feeling of giving meaning to your own life.

I think all of us that work as counselors get more out of it than probably the people we're working with.

It's probably the most rewarding thing I've ever done.