I am self employed, 44, and live in Michigan. I believe that out of the entire universe, we cannot be the only intelligent beings there are. SETI@home lets me give a hand to those researchers looking for other lifeforms in the universe.
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.