Volunteering your time and energy helps strengthen your community, but it also has important emotional and physical benefits.

This month we take a look at how retired adults can reimagine aging through volunteering. With new studies being done, we are finding more and more benefits linked with volunteering, specifically when volunteering after retirement.

According to a study done by the Corporation for National and Community Service, Americans over the age of 60 that volunteered reported lower disability and higher levels of well-being compared to those who did not volunteer.

David Delzer is an avid volunteer in his community. Before retiring he worked for the Veterans Administration as an engineer. In his free time he volunteered as a Cub Master, Sunday school teacher, and served on city of Richfield’s commissions.

Around the time David retired, his dad had a stroke and subsequently ended up having to pay out-of-pocket for his hospital stay. As a Medicare beneficiary, your hospital status (inpatient vs. outpatient) determines what Medicare covers and what your costs will be. This is something Medicare beneficiaries do not always know about.