Launching a Village to promote aging in community - human, social, and financial capital

Sep 29, 2026

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Villages are presented as a community-based membership model that helps people thrive as they age through neighbor-to-neighbor volunteer support, social programs, and trusted local resource information. The paper examines a development period from 2022 to 2025 for a rare New Jersey Village, detailing how leaders and residents mobilized human, social, and financial capital. Development work is organized into three phases and concludes with lessons on asset-based learning, embedding efforts in broader systems, and designing for sustainability and scalability.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Core ethos and organized community actions

Overview of the Glen Rock Neighborhood Network

Context

Local setting and relevance to the Village model

TYPE Community Case Study PUBLISHED 18 December 2025 DOI 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1688002 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Sojung Park, Washington University in St. Louis, United States REVIEWED BY Chen Li, Shanghai University of Engineering Sciences, China Limei Chen, George Mason University, United States Shu Wei, Northwest A&F University, China *CORRESPONDENCE Emily A. Greenfield [egreenf@ssw.rutgers.edu](egreenf@ssw.rutgers.edu) RECEIVED 18 August 2025 REVISED 10 November 2025 ACCEPTED 24 November 2025 PUBLISHED 18 December 2025 CORRECTED 19 December 2025 CITATION Greenfield EA (2025) Launching a Village to promote aging in community: human, social, and financial capital. Front. Public Health 13:1688002 . doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1688002 COPYRIGHT © 2025 Greenfield. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Launching a Village to promote aging in community: human, social, and financial capital Emily A. Greenfield * School of Social Work, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, United States Villages are an innovative, community-based approach to help people thrive as they age. Operating primarily as community-based membership organizations rather than actual “brick and mortar” locations, Villages commonly facilitate services through neighbors-helping-neighbors volunteer programs, offer social events and programs, and serve as a trusted source of information for local resources. Since the first Village launched in 2002, the model has expanded to hundreds of communities, yet the start-up of Villages remains limited in many regions. This paper explores the development period (2022–2025) for one of very few Villages in New Jersey (U. S.) . It highlights how local leaders and residents collaboratively mobilized diverse assets—including human, social, and financial capital—to design, develop, and launch the Village. It presents the development work across three phases: establishing the core team and administrative foundations; building the infrastructure; and preparing for launch. Lessons learned include the importance of adopting an asset-based approach and learning through doing, embedding local efforts within larger systems levels, and designing for sustainability and scalability. KEYWORDS organizational development, gerontology, asset-based community development, community capacity and development, civic participation, human capital (HC), social capital, nonprofit 1 Introduction In June of 2025, a series of social interactions occurred in a suburban town in northern New Jersey (NJ) that would not have happened otherwise. One community member gave another community member a ride to the dentist. Another community member helped a fellow community member troubleshoot a feature on her mobile device. Two other community members swapped garden tools and stories as one assisted the other with planting geraniums in her yard. And more than three dozen community members—ranging in age from their 40s through their 90s—came together in a neighbor’s backyard to socialize on one of the most pleasant spring nights that year. These events did not just happen. They came to fruition because of the organized efforts of a group of people working together over the years with a shared commitment to promote vibrant aging in their town. Together, they set out to develop a Village. Their commitment reflects the core ethos of aging in community: people working together to “create mutually supportive neighborhoods to enhance well-being and quality of life for older people at home and as integral members

FAQs

What is the Village model and how does it support aging in community?

The model operates as a community-based membership organization, using neighbor-helping-neighbors volunteer programs, community events for older adults, and a trusted information source for local services and resources.

Why does the paper focus on the Glen Rock Neighborhood Network?

It provides an overview of the start-up process of this Village and frames the development challenges and opportunities by drawing on real-world community experience.

What three phases are used to describe the Village’s development work?

The paper organizes the work into establishing the core team and administrative foundations, building the infrastructure, and preparing for launch.

Sep 29, 2026

Upload by hdkawk