AARP 2009 Inspire Award winners

Katherine Freund is the last person you’d expect to be an advocate for older drivers. In 1988 her son, Ryan, then three years old, was run over by a car. The driver, an octogenarian with dementia, didn’t stop; he said later he thought he might have hit a dog. But after Ryan recovered, Freund turned to the mishap itself.

“We do have to screen older drivers,” she says. “But once you identify someone as impaired, they still need transportation.”

And so Freund established the Independent Transportation Network, a nonprofit that last year offered more than 30,000 rides to seniors in eight states. Unlike publicly funded transportation for older adults, which limits trips to doctors, churches, and grocery stores, ITNAmerica has no restrictions.

“It’s hard to make a case that the public should fund discretionary rides,” Freund says. “But it’s easy to make the case that quality of life depends upon them.”

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