AARP Honors Outstanding Volunteer Iris Altilio with Andrus Award 2024

AARP New Hampshire is pleased to recognize Iris Altilio, of Pembroke, as the 2024 recipient of the Andrus Award for Community Service which honors Granite Staters 50-plus who are sharing their experience, talent, and skills to enrich the lives of their community members.

Iris’s inquisitive nature and drive to get things done started early. Her mother told Iris as soon as she started talking, she would say, “I’ll do it myself.” It took a little longer to start volunteering, but she did, as a Girl Scout. Iris remained a Girl Scout through high school, with fond memories including teaching all the troops to make paper flowers for floats in the Memorial Day Parade and earning the Girl Scout highest badge at the time, First Class. It’s come full circle, earning AARP’s highest award, the Andrus Award for Community Service.

Moving to New Hampshire from downstate New York in 2014, not knowing anyone here except her husband, Michael, Iris had to find ways to stay active. Anyone who attends an AARP “Six Pillars of Brain Health” presentation knows volunteering is how to stay engaged and challenged.

When asked why she volunteers, Iris said "Personally, it fills a void. It’s a way for me to be with people, to use skills, learn new skills, challenge myself, have a purpose, and make a difference.”

She expands on making a difference. “AARP NH’s five staff members can’t accomplish AARP’s mission on their own. Volunteers make a huge positive impact on their communities and the lives of the people in those communities.”

Asked what inspired her to volunteer for AARP, Iris replied “Nothing!” She thought, AARP was just about discounts and insurance until she started volunteering.

Attending an AARP Life Reimagined class, she learned about an upcoming Snack, Sample and Serve volunteer recruitment event. That’s where the AARP adventure started. She attended a Greater Concord Community Planning Team meeting in 2018, where she was warmly welcomed by other volunteers. While there, she saw how they worked together to bringing opportunities to learn, socialize and have fun – learning with purpose – to AARP members and communities in Greater Concord.

Since joining AARP, Iris has been a greeter for Tax-Aide, a “We Need to Talk” presenter for Driver Safety and recently part of a national team working to improve response to inquiries about volunteering with AARP. Iris joined the Capital City Task Force (CCTF) this year, wrote her first-ever Op Ed article and knocked down the nerves to testify at a Senate hearing. She’s looking forward to growing her involvement with CCTF during the 2025 legislative session.

Iris accepted the role of Speaker Bureau Coordinator in July 2020. She uses her organizational skills and attention to detail every day, organizing more than 90 presentations throughout the state in 2023, supporting nearly 40 volunteer speakers, and sometimes even presenting. Iris gives a lot to the Speakers Bureau but says it has given her much more, confidence, patience and satisfaction knowing that she is sharing ways for people to improve their lives. She looks forward to being an integral part of its continued growth and success. How often do you get to “build the plane while flying it”!

"AARP gives you many opportunities to step out of your comfort zone if you want them," she reflects, citing her experience working with the American Red Cross (ARC) to bring important presentations on emergency preparedness to the state, as an achievement she is proud of. "It is a win for us to be able to share this valuable information, a win for the ARC to be able to expand their reach, and a win for those who learn to prepare for emergencies and home fires.”

Giving fraud presentations, hearing stories and of course receiving scam calls, emails and texts, Iris saw the ongoing need for fraud awareness and training and realized she has a passion for fraud fighting. She is now an AARP Fraud Fighter and is thinking of innovative and fun ways to raise fraud awareness and fight fraud. She looks forward to forging new partnerships for the Speakers Bureau and fighting fraud.

Ask Iris what inspires her to stay with AARP and she’ll tell you “AARP fights for our needs and helps us be seen" but she’ll tell you that’s not enough of a reason. It’s the staff, their appreciation and support of volunteers, the other volunteers, the people she encounters when in community, the opportunities and having a voice, the good we do and the satisfaction of making a difference that keeps her with AARP.

AARP is what keeps Iris busiest, but as she says, “Sleep is overrated.” She volunteered with the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness for over six years before being asked to become an employee, she volunteers with OLLI@UNH (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) where she steps out of her comfort zone to recruit presenters and is also teaching her first class. Seeing how libraries have taken on an important role as community centers, but hearing residents question the worth of town libraries, Iris helped to form the Friends of the Pembroke Town Library who support and assist with library programs, fundraising to bring new programming to the library and increasing community awareness of the awesomeness of the town library.

When asked “what does this award mean to you,” Iris said, “We seem to become less important, and invisible as we age. This award shows we’re not invisible, we are making a difference.”

She is very appreciative to those who recognized her contribution and honored to be the recipient but knows that to earn this award takes teamwork. She hopes to continue to live up to Dr. Andrus’s motto, “To serve and not be served.”