Journal of Aging Research purposeful and meaningful. As suggested by Scharlach [14], in an elder-friendly community, older adults are not just seen as clients or passive recipients of services, but “active contributors to the well-being of the community” [14, page 9]. In the original AdvantAge survey, residents from this community volunteered at a rate substantially lower than the national average for the 10 AdvantAge communities [23]. What we learned from this study was that aging community members held interest and motivation to volunteer or otherwise be engaged in their community. We believe they see themselves as having social capital [29], but as Putnam [29] points out, others may not always share their view. The environmental function of stimulation [12] is relevant here as participants seemed to look to their community for stimuli for enhanced social well-being and to elicit new and relevant social and leisure behaviors [9]. Older participants appeared more likely to have volunteer and community activities in place, while younger adults (boomers) were perhaps seeking out methods for accomplishing that goal. Both younger and older participants also noted structural barriers to social connectedness and social integration, supporting Alley et al. [15] who suggest that while communities may be able to support aging in place, they may also contain barriers that make community living diﬃcult for older residents. A recent study of 253 older adults reinforces the importance of organizational structure in volunteerism. Tang et al. [30] found organizational support (deﬁned as choice of volunteer activity, training, and ongoing support) to be associated with socioemotional beneﬁts, including perceived contribution and personal beneﬁts. These researchers concluded that the “psychological well-being of older adults can be improved through engagement in meaningful volunteer activities and contribution to others” [30, page 603], again reinforcing what Rubinstein and colleagues [20] noted concerning the connection between well-being and active environmental management. In order for these beneﬁts to occur, how- ever, an elder-friendly community must work to eliminate structural and organizational barriers to volunteerism and social connectedness. As Scharf and colleagues [8] assert, participation and integration are enhanced by good public service such as access to reliable transportation. To not provide such services serves to reinforce the social exclusion of older people. The identiﬁcation of structural barriers also reinforces the person-in-environment perspective that the needs of older people change over time and must be successfully navigated in order to maintain social integration. Lawton’s [12] environmental function of maintenance is relevant here. If a community is to be elder-friendly, the infrastructure needs to be consistent and predictable at the very least, while at the same time dynamic in its ability to provide stimulation and support. Community-based research is particularly useful when it is able to identify problems and move toward a resolution of that issue. Researchers can partner with communities to study areas of interest, interpret results [31], and assist in the empowerment of community members to make changes [32]. The ﬁndings from this study have already resulted in community level change eﬀorts related to volunteerism. An annual volunteer fair was initiated in 2010 with the goal of 7 creating a venue to match older volunteers with community level volunteer opportunities. This newly formed activity grew directly out of the identiﬁcation of structural barriers in this research and was created through a partnership of senior advocates, the community’s AIP committee, and local organizations, including the area hospital. In the ﬁrst year of operation, 30 community organizations and programs participated along with 120 attendees. More than 80% of older adults were successfully matched with local organiza- tions, thus improving social connectedness, integration, and reciprocity in a direct and clear way. This event has now been established as an annual event sponsored by seniors, city government, and other community entities. Its goal is to improve civic engagement among older residents, thus fostering the connectedness between older residents and organizations that serve the community. In addition to the importance of civic engagement, the philosophy of aging in place supports the continued importance of maximizing independence for not only the frail and disabled, but for aging adults of all abilities. In particular, these ﬁndings point to the need for accessible and available transportation, an issue that city oﬃcials and community advocates should attempt to improve through partnerships. As Feldman and Oberlink [17] noted in their original ﬁndings, “transportation and safety are fundamental factors that enable older adults to stay connected to the community” [17, page 5]. Rosenbloom [33] suggests that transportation in elder-friendly communities will need to be planned to provide more customized services, link- ing residential concentrations with important destinations, including volunteer opportunity destinations. The project ﬁndings noted that while all participants voiced the need for improved transportation services, the kinds of services desired may change with age. The lack of this kind of transportation was clearly identiﬁed as a major structural barrier reinforcing social exclusion and needs to be consid- ered as future planning takes place. With impending cuts to public transportation, the aging in place committee is examining potential alternatives to improve transportation through private and voluntary means. 7.1. Limitations. The results of this study provide impor- tant information on social connectedness in elder-friendly communities. Still, this study has several limitations that must be acknowledged. First, as a qualitative and naturalistic study, the ﬁndings are the speciﬁc views of those individuals involved and cannot be generalized to any larger population of aging adults. Second, a further limitation is that those who responded to the invitation to participate in the community forum may have had a greater interest in the topic, or a vested interest in having their voices heard as compared to those who did not or could not attend. However, the study results provide a new dimension to the subject area and support previous studies and theories on aging in place, thus adding to the picture of what needs to be done to support the creation of elder-friendly communities. Because of the homogeneous makeup of forum participants, the voices of other communities such as communities of color were not clearly heard. It must be acknowledged that the opinions and