The Hunger Leadership Awards is our annual celebration of outstanding leaders in the movement to end hunger. For this year’s virtual ceremony, held Wednesday, September 16, we are recognizing leaders who prove every day that hunger is solvable.
The recipients of our 2020 Corporate Partner Award are AARP Foundation and its president, Lisa Marsh Ryerson. We recognize the Foundation’s dedication to the fight against senior hunger, including leading support for the Elderly Simplified Application for SNAP and commitment to addressing the root causes of health disparities by focusing on hunger and other social determinants of health.
Join us on Wednesday, September 16 to recognize and celebrate AAPR Foundation, Lisa Marsh Ryerson, and the rest of our award recipients!
For 57 years, AARP Foundation has served vulnerable people 50 and older by creating and advancing effective solutions that help them secure the essentials. As AARP’s charitable affiliate, the Foundation serves AARP members and nonmembers alike. The Foundation tackles senior poverty by sparking bold, innovative solutions that help vulnerable older adults build economic opportunity and social connectedness—fostering resilience, strengthening communities and restoring hope. Operating at the intersection of collaboration, innovation, legal advocacy and grantmaking, AARP Foundation brings together industry, government, activists, and volunteers to forge practical approaches that pair brainpower with some serious willpower.
Lisa Marsh Ryerson is president of AARP Foundation. A bold, disciplined and collaborative leader, she sets the Foundation’s strategic direction and steers its efforts to realize an audacious vision: a country free of poverty, where no older person feels vulnerable. Since she took the helm, AARP Foundation has developed pioneering initiatives, explored new avenues for collaboration, and secured unprecedented funding to support programs and services that truly change lives.
Ms. Ryerson has spearheaded innovative partnerships with other organizations to create and advance effective solutions that help vulnerable older adults increase their economic opportunity and social connectedness. These include The Root Cause Coalition, co-founded by AARP Foundation and ProMedica, which brings the full power of health care to bear in the collective fight to address the root causes of health disparities by focusing on hunger and other social determinants of health. One of the Foundation’s most recent collaborative efforts, Connect2Affect, draws together aging, volunteer and health care organizations to help end isolation and build the social connections older adults need to thrive.
During her tenure, the Foundation has launched initiatives that include Age Strong, Work for Yourself@50+, new programs to encourage saving and home maintenance, and evidence-based grantmaking. The Foundation also brought Experience Corps under its umbrella and became the largest national sponsor of the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP).
Ms. Ryerson holds a Bachelor of Arts from Wells College and a Master of Science from the State University of New York College at Cortland. Lauded for her leadership, she has received numerous awards and honors. Ms. Ryerson has an honorary degree from Southern New Hampshire University, given to her in 2015; and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the State University of New York at Albany for having “met and exceeded each of John Quincy Adams’ standards for leadership”; and an honorary degree of Doctor of Social Services from Dickinson College in 2017.
We have everything we need to solve hunger. What we are lacking is the political will and a coordinated effort. Those actually don't cost a thing.
Lisa Marsh Ryerson, President, AARP Foundation; 2020 Corporate Partner Award Recipient
Join us on Wednesday, September 16 to recognize and celebrate AARP Foundation, Lisa Marsh Ryerson, and the rest of our award recipients!
We have everything we need to solve hunger. What we are lacking is the political will and a coordinated effort. Those actually don't cost a thing.Lisa Marsh Ryerson, President, AARP Foundation; 2020 Corporate Partner Award Recipient