The Village Common of RI will weigh whether to start operations on a new community for seniors in Warwick in a meeting to be held with city residents at the Warwick Public Library on Dec. 15 at 10 a.m.

According to Executive Director Caroline Gangji, the idea for a village in Warwick came from a community member earlier this year, leading the organization to look into the feasibility of maintaining a village in Warwick.

Gangji said she’s already seen a good degree of interest from Warwick residents, a positive sign that creation of the village may move forward.

“We already have five members who want to join a steering committee, which is really exciting for us,” she said.

The village would not be geographical, but rather, Gangji said, focused on creating community and making sure seniors can age in their own homes.

“Loneliness is a health crisis, and one of the ways to fix it is social connections and that’s what a village does,” Gangji said. “Making friends gets harder as you get older.”

Gangji said that The Village Common, which is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit, relies heavily on volunteers, who provide many of the day-to-day tasks of the organization. Volunteers work on their own schedule, with Gangji saying that some people volunteer twice a year while others volunteer once a week.

While reducing isolation is a key component of volunteer work for The Village Common, Gangji said that volunteers also do physical tasks that get harder for seniors to do as they get older.

“It could be driving to a medical appointment, it could be changing a ceiling lightbulb since getting on a ladder could be dangerous for an elderly person, it could be running errands, because as we age and we lose the ability to drive, going to the grocery store to touch that piece of fruit and purchase it becomes super important in the mental health of aging,” Gangji said. “They assist with tech support, be it resetting a router or setting up their printer, they provide lots of opportunities to reduce social isolation and loneliness.”

Should a village in Warwick be created, it would be the seventh in the state, joining similar ones in Providence, Cranston, Barrington, Westerly, Glocester and Burrillville. According to Gangji, Newport and Cumberland residents have also shown interest, and could create villages of their own in the near future.

The Village Common of RI was first organized in 2019, four years after the first village in the state - Providence- was first launched. The organization was inspired by and modeled after The Village Movement, a group that began in 1999 and describe themselves as “an innovative grassroots movement that coordinates critical services for older adults.”

Due to The Village Common of RI’s “wheel-and-spoke” model, Gangji said that other villages would help Warwick’s get off the ground while making sure Warwick’s forms its own unique identity. She views Burrillville and Glocester -the two most recently created villages- as good role models for Warwick to follow.

“There’s transportation frustrations that are similar to Burrillville and Glocester,” Gangji said. “There’s a lot of similarities with other communities, and our current villages always work with our newer villages to communicate tips and tricks.”

Gangji has been in contact with local partners- Warwick Director of Senior Services Meg Underwood and Westbay Community Action president/CEO Paul Salera- who both said that the project would be a good idea. She will be reaching out to the city’s government shortly, in order to keep them up to date and work with them.

According to Gangji, the village would operate under a “pay what you can” model, saying that while there would be suggested payment amounts, the organization understands that the financial situation of many elderly residents may mean they can’t afford to pay those amounts.

“We don’t want dues to influence whether someone can become a part of the community,” Gangji said.

Should everything go as she hopes a week from Friday, though, the Warwick village could have an unofficial start date of Dec. 15. If that happens, then the next steps -creating and maintaining a community for Warwick’s senior citizens- begins.

Anyone looking for more information on The Village Common of RI can find them at villagecommonri.org.