Do You Know America's Oldest Worker?
Dateline: 11/21/97
Milton Ward Garland is currently employed as a consulting engineer. So what? So, Mr. Garland was born in 1895, which makes him 102 years old and which, according to a Reuter's news release of October 3, 1997, makes Mr. Garland the oldest known worker in America. Hundreds of thousands of men and women in America continue to work long after age 65. Many of them beyond age 100.
But, there may just be American workers older than Mr. Garland still putting in a least 20 hours a week and the Green Thumb organization wants to find and recognize them. Green Thumb plans to honor the oldest worker in each state and the oldest worker in America. The final date for entering is December 30, 1997, and workers must put in at least 20 hours of work a week to qualify. Workers can enter themselves, or be nominated by employers, friends, or family by filling out this online form on the Green Thumb Web site.
About the Green Thumb Organization
Green Thumb is a non-profit national organization operating under the Department of Labor's Senior Community Service Employment program to, "...provide training and employment opportunities to low-income older workers in primarily rural areas." And, a good job they do of it. Every year more than 27,000 Green Thumb-trained workers put in more than 22 million hours of vital service in state, local, and non-profit agencies in 44 states and Puerto Rico. All recruiting, training, and placement of these workers is managed through Green Thumb's Senior Community Service Employment Program.
Green Thumb also works with the private sector in promoting employment of older workers in local businesses through its Experience Works! (TM) program. And Green Thumb's Shape Up! program works along with the Centers for Disease Control to enhance the physical condition of older Americans.
Where "Green Thumb" Came From: Lady Bird Johnson Gets to Work
In December of 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson had been President of the United States for less than 30 days following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Searching for a theme, or direction for his new administration, Johnson selected a favorite goal of the late President Kennedy -- ending poverty in America. In fact, President Johnson decided he would not stop at merely addressing poverty, he declared the "War on Poverty."
President Lyndon B. Johnson: Declared the "War on Poverty."
Two years later, President Johnson launched a major assault in the poverty war in the form of the Economic Opportunity Act. But, as many major spending bills do, it bogged down in Congress. As debate dragged on, First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson devised a plan she hoped would help get things moving.
Like President Johnson, Lady Bird had been raised on Texas farming and ranching. See had witnessed, first hand, the decline of small family-owned farming, and its impact on farmers grown too old to work their land. In a memo to Congress, Lady Bird Johnson proposed a plan to, "...take the green thumbs of poor, older, and retired farmers and put them to work to beautify our highways." Later in the memo, she states, "What an opportunity is presented here to provide older farmers with useful employment for which they are fully qualified..." And, not even in Washington, D.C., did anyone think this was a bad idea!
In October, 1965, President Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act which included an amendment creating the "Green Thumb" project, and by the spring of 1966, crews of Green Thumb farmers in Arkansas, New Jersey, Oregon, and Minnesota were working again.
While First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson also created the First Lady's Committee for a More Beautiful Capital, a program which later expanded nationwide. She also took a very active part in the Head Start program for preschool children. After her years in the White House, Lady Bird continued her service to America by founding the National Wildflower Research Center, and the Lyndon B. Johnson Library at the University of Texas.
