On his 70th birthday, David W. Bowen received an award Friday in Pottsville for a segment of what has been his life’s work: helping others.
“People are my business,” Bowen, Frackville, said as the Schuylkill Elder Abuse Prevention Alliance Inc. presented him with the Hornbrook Memorial Award for helping to make county citizens aware of that problem.
“I’m certainly humbled by this award,” said Bowen, who accepted it at a luncheon at The Greystone restaurant attended by approximately 20 people. “People have been my life.”
Alliance Chairwoman Eileen Barlow said Bowen, who has been helping with the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program for 15 years, was a natural choice to receive the award, which is named for the late Penn State professor John Hornbrook.
“He is always willing to lend a helping hand no matter what,” Barlow said of Bowen. “His work with the elderly continued even after retirement.”
Bowen, who held several positions before retiring three years ago as a case manager for the Luzerne County Area Agency on Aging, said his handicapped parents inspired him to make sure people who needed help could get it.
“The services that are here today weren’t available” for them, he said. “They needed services. There are so many people who need help.”
He is especially concerned for veterans who do not get what the law says they should.
“So many veterans are not aware” of benefits they are entitled to receive, he said. “They deserve our strictest attention.”
Bowen said that lack of awareness is especially prevalent among older veterans.
Barlow said Bowen’s work with veterans has been vital.
“A great number ... were living in poverty,” and needed housing, benefits and medical care, she said.
Schuylkill County Commissioner Gary J. Hess said Bowen is a longtime friend who unquestionably deserved to receive the award. People like Bowen are especially important in Schuylkill County, which has a large aging population, Hess said.
“He always wanted to help,” said Hess, who got to know Bowen through the Jaycees. “Everything he’s done is special.”
Barlow said the award helps the alliance publicize its three-fold mission: educate the public, promote awareness of the crime of elder abuse and work with law enforcement to ensure perpetrators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
“We are an aging county and ... we need to protect those who ... gave us the foundation on which the county was built,” she said.
To Bowen, helping people who need help is a natural thing to do and he will never give up his part in doing it.
“There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said.