AARP volunteer recognized for three decades of work

PALMER — In the volunteer world, it’s kind of hard to find a person like Judy Wake.

For the past 34 years, Wake has worked with the American Association of Retired Persons, volunteering to prepare tax returns for senior citizens.

“I got kind of suckered into it in the beginning,” she said.

She was working as director of the Seward Senior Citizens Center and her boss told her she’d be taking a class with her. The class turned out to be one for tax preparers.

“I send them home to my mom usually, but I’ll learn to do them,” Wake said of her relatively inauspicious start as a tax program volunteer.

Now 34 years later, after volunteering in Galena and the Valley as well as Seward, she’s coordinating AARP’s tax program in the Mat-Su, sending volunteers to just about every senior center you care to name.

“It’s a real grass-roots effort,” she said, adding that it’s helped her make lots of friends. “I’ve got friends all over the Valley now, which is great. I didn’t know anybody when I moved here.”

AARP chose this year to award her the Andrus Award for Community Service. It’s something that only one person in each state wins each year. They tried to surprise her with it.

“We had a meeting here of our volunteer leaders and we had asked Judy if she would come by and we had kind of our top volunteer leaders and made the presentation at that time,” said Ann Seacrest, director of communications for AARP Alaska. “I think she was a little suspicious.”

Wake admits to her suspicions.

“They told me I was going to come in and talk about volunteering. A couple of times it went through my mind how stupid it was of them to ask me to talk to the people from the state, people who volunteer all the time,” she said. “It was a surprise, but then as soon as they said something it was like, oh I kind of thought you guys were up to something.”

Judy Watson, Wake’s immediate boss at the AARP program, “just thinks the world of Judy,” according to Seacrest.

That comes across in Watson’s nomination form for the Andrus award.

“Judy greets each person she meets with a cheerful ‘hello’ and ‘how can I help you?’ She has the ability to assess a situation and find a solution that is agreeable to all parties,” Watson wrote.

For most of her volunteer career, Wake has had to have a day job. Lately, though, she’s been semi-retired herself, keeping the books for her husband’s home business.

“He also has a day job in Anchorage, so it’s not like it’s hard to do,” she said.

Wake said that what keeps her with AARP for all these years is really the support and help she gets from the organization.

“It’s a real good network the staff. AARP in the Anchorage office are just phenomenal people,” she said. “

She also likes knowing that she’s offering seniors a service that is just as good as they could get at a retail store.

“We do have to certify that we’re the real thing,” she said. “We’re as good as any other person that’s out there doing taxes for you.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.