Brief History of RSVP In Alachua County
The Retired & Senior Volunteer Program was authorized under the Older Americans Act of 1965 by the United States Congress. In 1971, funds were appropriated to the Administration on Aging to initiate RSVP projects nationwide. Later, RSVP was transferred to ACTION, the Federal Agency for Volunteerism, which also includes programs such as the Foster Grandparents, Senior Companions, and VISTA. Presently, there are RSVP projects in all fifty states, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. In Florida, over 24,000 Volunteers are serving in RSVP programs.
The Alachua County RSVP project was begun in July, 1973 and was first sponsored by the Voluntary Action Center of Alachua County. In June of 1974, the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners assumed sponsorship of the project and RSVP currently is part of Alachua County's Department of Community Support Services. In recent years, RSVP Volunteers have provided more than 132,800 hours of service a year. This represents a contribution of over $1,600,000 in service to our local communities. With your active participation, we can expect RSVP to continue being a positive, strong program for Alachua County.
On October 1, 1993 under the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 ACTION merged with the Corporation for National and Community Service to administer the program. With this merge came the renaming of our program to The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program which lowered the age eligibility from sixty to fifty-five to include those volunteers still in the work force.
