SCSA 2007 Service to Seniors Award Recipients Combine Knowledge of Seniors with Commitment to Community

Kevin Turkington

As President of Anchorage’s Older Persons Action Group, Community Citizen Award recipient Kevin Turkington has led four-fold growth in the agency’s services to seniors over the four and one-half years he has served as president of the non-profit. In his professional life, Turkington is CEO of Senior Care of Alaska, which provides home health care services for homebound seniors.

As a volunteer, his efforts have produced more than $1.5 million in grants and matching funds for senior services and programs, including establishment of a senior information hotline covering topics such as health, housing, nutrition, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security; bilingual computer training; two new full-time AmericaCorps VISTA staff members; training for personal care assistants and certified nurse aides; a job information service; growth in the agency’s staff from four to 14 members; production of award-winning publications that reach 45,000 seniors monthly; establishment of eight satellite chapters throughout Alaska staffed by 25 volunteers; translation of food safety materials from English to Spanish and a slew of other initiatives to benefit Alaska’s seniors.
“Because of his dedicated commitment and untiring efforts, Kevin has significantly enhanced the quality of life for thousands of seniors in Alaska,” said Ray Clements, executive director of Older Persons Action Group, Inc. (OPAG). In recognition of his efforts, Society of Certified Senior Advisors made a $500 contribution to the OPAG.

Wally Buyer

CSA Trailblazer Award honoree Wally Buyer helps seniors when many most need help: after the loss of a family member. Over the past eight years, Buyer has organized four bereavement support groups that he facilitates. Each group meets twice monthly for an hour and a half. “Those attending grief support groups most commonly are experiencing a variety of emotions, and continue to feel despair and grief well beyond the time when society would otherwise dictate that they should be getting on with their lives,” Buyer said. “Faced with such pressures of getting on when, in fact, they are still trying to cope with their loss, the sense they come in to the group with is, ‘What’s wrong with me? Am I crazy?’ Given those circumstances, coming to a bereavement support group has helped individuals come to grips with the reality of a loss.”

Buyer, a tax preparer and financial planner in Montclair, Calif., became involved with grief counseling as a consequence of having six clients die during the course of one tax season, leaving grief-stricken widows behind. “I was ill prepared to deal with weeping widows other than to put them on extension and come back when the atmosphere was less moist. Somehow, however, I felt that was inherently wrong. As fate would have it, I was coming out of church shortly thereafter and my pastor asked me if I would be interested in attending a workshop on bereavement ministries. I acquiesced, despite my own reluctance to attend, and have never looked back. It was an eye-opener for me, and I have since immersed myself on the subject matter. I have become a certified grief counselor and was pleased when taking the CSA course that the training devoted as much time as it did to grief. Given the axiom of not being able to beat death and taxes, becoming a CSA specializing in both death and taxes just seemed a good fit,” he said.

A panel of professionals who work with seniors and persons who volunteer with seniors selected the recipients.