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Show Community Groups Have Expanded Recreation Programs This year approximately IV2 million Americans will arrive at the threshold of their own "new frontier" retirement. By and large, families who enter retirement today have a greater variety of financial resources re-sources than their parents and grandparents, reports the Institute Insti-tute of Life Insurance. Some of these resources, such as Social Security and pension plans and some life insurance policies are designed to provide a regular income after retirement. retire-ment. Others, like savings .and investments, and the ownership of a home, make up a financial reserve which the family can turn to if the need should arise. While total resources vary widely from family to family, all indications are that people at retirement today are better off financially than those of a generation gene-ration or more ago. More than half the nation's industrial and office force is now enrolled in pension plans where they work, include insured pension plans underwritten by life insurance companies; and nearly all working work-ing people come under Social Security. Two out of three older families who live in cities and suburbs now own their homes, most of them mortgage free. The older persons tend to have life insurance as a study of those receiving re-ceiving Social Security payments show. Furthermore, the typical retired family is not in debt; where money is owed, the sum is likely to be small. The prospects of retirement in circumstances of financial inde- pendence has naturally turned families' thoughts to additional leisure time they will have. "Learning how to spend leisure lei-sure time does not come over night," says one authority on retirement re-tirement activities, Arthur Williams, Wil-liams, associate executive director direc-tor of the National Recreation Association. "People accumulate knowledge over the years; it is almost as if they deposit the knowledge in a bank, ready to draw upon after they retire. "When the time comes, this stored up knowledge, if used effectively, ef-fectively, will lead to a happier and more enjoyable retirement." For some persons, leisure time meanes the freedom to pursue a hobby, for some it is the freedom to catch up with studies put off during the working years. Still others use their freedom to join others in organized recreation programs. Retirement for many thousands has also meant an opportunity op-portunity to step up volunteer for community organizations such as hospitals, churches, and other groups. The key word. Mr. Williams says, is "freedom," because retirement re-tirement provides -families with freedom and independence to do much of what they have always wanted. They may stay at home or travel, sleep late or get up early, start a new career or just relax in a hammock. The steady increase in the number of families who have retired re-tired there are 17 milloin persons per-sons today who have reached 65 has lead to greater interest in recreation all over the nation. Churches, community groups, private organizations and government gov-ernment agencies have stepped up existing recreation programs or have begun new ones in later years. These programs cover a wide range of activities from picnic facilities in parks all the way to elaborate recreation centers in new major retirement housing developments in Florida, Arizona and others states, which have created new communities. These incidentally are complete with merical facilities, doctors, and nurses and have built-in safety features for retired people. |