If you’re reading this, the chances are that you’re an active sort of person and want to stay that way. One step beyond being active is activism – engaging in social, political and environmental causes that you strongly believe in. You may well have been doing this all your life, and now, when you probably have more time and resources, is certainly not the time to stop.

87-year-old Florence Seldin lives in Chatham on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 1920, when American women were given the right to vote, Florence’s mother was a 15-year-old for whom this historic victory was of vast significance. “She voted religiously and taught her kids to vote religiously,” Florence recalls. “Maybe my roots in activism start there.” Having served on local community committees all her life, she believes that it is now more important than ever to be an activist, and is working hard for affordable health care and climate change action. “Activism shows that people are together, and not alone in their concerns,” says Florence. “It doesn’t matter what your party affiliation is, if you believe in something you should stand up for it.”

The day after Trump’s inauguration she climbed onto one of seven buses hired by the League of Women Voters of the Cape Cod Area and headed to the Boston Women’s March for America. “It was really great,” she recalls. “There was an energy, a sense that people were raising their voices together.” Activism is nothing new to Florence Seldin. In the 1970s, when she was a school administrator in New York State, she participated in a statewide commission looking at discrimination against women. On Cape Cod she has worked on affordable housing issues and women’s voter registration. And why does she do it? “I’m an activist for my grandchildren,” she says. “It would be easy to sit at home, put my feet up, read my books. But democracy is not a spectator sport.”

Florence is just one among many thousands of older people working hard to uphold citizen rights and privileges, work for equality and freedom, and protect our precious natural environment. And as she says, when we work together for positive change we really can make a difference.