After my husband died in 2014, I sold my house, left the comfort of my 43 years of living in NYC/Westchester County, NY, and moved to Florida.

My decision to move to be close to my Florida-based daughter and her family had a great deal of peace associated with it, but that was not the only decision I would need to make in this new phase of my life. As I reflected on my wonderful family and many friends as well as my meaningful and challenging career—from teaching to advertising to technology to entrepreneurship—I knew I would continue working. I love to work and I need to work since I plan to live into my 90s and my nest egg will fall short well before that date. I also love challenges and new opportunities—but I made up my mind that at this stage of life I wouldn’t accept just any opportunity.

What next?

I set my sights high. I knew I wanted to spend my time and work efforts dedicated to something that would have a significant and widespread positive impact. Setting that goal was the easy part, but where to find that next challenge was not initially clear. But I’ve set high goals for myself at other times in my life, and opportunities have fortunately presented themselves. I was confident the answer would come to me this time as well.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Paul Rupert (a thirty-year pioneer in workplace flexibility) shared with me his vision of ending the 65-retirement “sell-by” date, and that got my attention: I was approaching 65 myself and was one of the statistics I would soon learn about.

When I had first met Paul in 2003 at a Working Mother Magazine’s 100 Best Companies event, we hit it off right away and maintained our relationship through hard economic cycles and personal tragedies. We had shared goals supporting the flexibility needs of employees. Paul enjoyed a successful flexibility consulting business, and my husband and I were making a significant contribution to help employees struggling to balance work with their life challenge—family illness, coordination of care for elders by providing CareCircle programs, through our innovative project management software.

Fast forward to fall of 2016, when Paul told me about his passion for transforming retirement. I started reading every research study on aging and work that I could find, studied the facts, and talked to people who I knew were living this issue every day.

Save the Earth, Save the Whales, Save the Plover birds… How about Save the Aging Workers?

Once I saw the numbers of workers 50 and older who are being forced out of work with less than $15K in savings and talked to real people impacted by this situation, I couldn’t unsee the tragedy of this exploding baby boomer crisis. I committed to working with Paul to make his vision of transforming retirement a reality. Today at Respectful Exits, we have assembled an impressive staff and growing group of advisors to help us change the financial fate of these vulnerable workers.

Change is hard, and crafting solutions that work for employees and employers will take tremendous effort. But with 10,000 Boomers turning 65 a day and facing an uncertain future, and vibrant contributors being discarded from the workplace daily, if not now, when? Join me by being part of our campaign to ensure a more secure future and better quality of life for you, your relatives, your friends, and your neighbors.