Groups for women over 50 attract thousands across Long Island

The Long Island women gathered as part of a group meant to inspire friendship for women older than 50 and soon began to gossip about another woman.

“She wouldn’t be one of my friends,” said Jill Meise, 76, of Riverhead, calling her “flirtatious” and “a floozy.”

Nancy McCaffrey, 73, of East Moriches, branded her “shallow,” accusing her of marrying for power and money.

“She wouldn’t be my friend because I have nothing to offer her,” sniffed Carrie McDermott, 63, of South Setauket.

This is a supportive group meant to bring women together?

Well, yes, actually, it is.

The women are members of a book club formed within the umbrella group called The Ethels. The Ethels Gathering Group: Long Island is the Long Island chapter of a nationwide initiative spearheaded by AARP and named after AARP’s founder, Ethel Percy Andrus. They are discussing Pamela Harriman, the subject of their latest read, “Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue.” Harriman was a diplomat and socialite married first to the son of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and then to W. Averell Harriman, once governor of New York.

The Ethels Gathering Group: Long Island is a grassroots social group, with anyone able to host an event and invite other group members via the group’s Facebook page. Activities include lunches, outings, walks at parks or malls, local shows, book clubs and more. It is a relatively new and growing group, with 841 members. The Long Island chapter launched in 2024 and sponsored 84 events in 2025, said group organizer Linda Grunenberg, 71, of Shirley, a widowed retired electronics buyer with three grown children. “We consider ourselves to have a mission of meeting the needs of senior women to prevent social isolation and loneliness through the act of fun with a very sincere emphasis on caring,” Grunenberg said.

FROM IHOP TO ARUBA

The Ethels isn’t the only active grassroots group meant to give women over 50 opportunities to make new friends.

Michelle Yelner, 64, of Massapequa, started The Long Island Women Over 50 Discussion and Event Group in 2020, which now boasts more than 14,000 members on its Facebook page and offers five to 10 events a week. Most group members are in their 50s and 60s, said Yelner, whose career included selling advertising.

Members have done winery outings, gone to Broadway shows, tried axe-throwing, had game nights, made arts and crafts, even taken trips to Aruba and Grenada, and they are planning a European river cruise for this summer. The group has holiday parties as well — for “Galentine’s Day” in February, multiple events at different price points included a dinner at La Famiglia in Plainview and lunch at IHOP in Farmingdale.

Membership is free

Being a member of the group is free; members then pay for individual events they choose to attend. Long Island has other groups for seniors as well, but these are meant specifically for women and are run by the members themselves.

Such grassroots groups fill a critical need for social involvement and provide an opportunity for sisterhood, said Laurie Zelinger, 73, a psychologist in private practice in Cedarhurst. “We still need to feel valued, interested and connected with others. Grassroot groups help provide that sense of contact and affiliation. Feeling as though you are an integral part of something improves self-esteem, reduces feelings of isolation and gives us all a sense of purpose and future,” she said.

Yelner said she started The Long Island Women Over 50 Discussion and Event Group because other online groups for women seemed to focus on women with younger children. “I wanted to be able to talk about retirement, about having adult children,” said Yelner, who is married with one son, age 25. She thought of it at first as primarily an online discussion forum, and it does also still offer that opportunity.

But people got excited to meet in person, Yelner said. Being retired, they have more time and are looking for things to do, especially during the day, she noted.

Bethann Bark Wolfe, 53, an attorney from Locust Valley, said she likes getting the perspective and advice of other women her age. “Whatever I’m going through at the time, people already went through it,” she said. “I use it for information and connection. Some of the things that are discussed are things that are kind of whimsical and others of them are quite serious.”

PLANNING AN EVENT

Event planning in The Ethels, for instance, works like this: Any member decides on an event date and time, notifies Grunenberg, and Grunenberg then promotes it on the group’s Facebook page. Other members sign up to attend. Hosts do such legwork as calling a restaurant to make sure it will accommodate a group, allow separate checks and have access for members who might have mobility issues. “All you have to do, really, is show up and have fun and make sure all the members are enjoying themselves,” Grunenberg said. An event can be as simple as coffee at a Panera Bread or a walk in a park.

In Long Island Women Over 50, members plan and post independently, Yelner said.

Lisa Vilinsky, 71, a retired special education teaching assistant from Centereach, volunteers to host an event for Long Island Women Over 50 two or three times a week in Suffolk County. It might be going to the movies in Port Jefferson or having dinner at Olive Garden. She keeps her events to between 15 and 20 people to encourage more intimate connections. “When people come to me and say, ‘You’ve changed my life,’ that’s my payment,” she said.

Susana Esquenazi, 60, a research scientist and senior program coordinator from Massapequa, plans larger events for Long Island Women Over 50. She’s still working full time, so she can’t attend as many events as retirees. She said she maximizes her ability to connect with more people at once when the groups are bigger.

“When you find people you can laugh and be silly with and be yourself with ... that’s what we all need. I’ve been fortunate to find that within this particular group,” Esquenazi said. “Where would you ever find a place where you can ask so many women their opinion on things and get honest feedback? They all contribute to living a richer life.”

The only drawback of how the groups operate, said Debra Stevens, 73, of Lido Beach, is that if you’re not on Facebook, you miss out on knowing about the events.

‘YOU FIND CONNECTIONS’

Ethels book club member McDermott, retired from Eastern Suffolk BOCES, recommends women overcome the reluctance to come to an event solo. “Many women are afraid they’re going to walk in by themselves, and people aren’t going to be friendly,” she said. But she didn’t find that to be the case. “I stepped out of my comfort zone last summer and I never looked back. It’s been such a great experience.” She said she attends at least one event a week.

“You find connections,” she said. “It seems like everybody is there for the same reason — they want to feel a part of something. By joining The Ethels you’re not isolated, you can get as involved as you want.”

A lot of the women start to play canasta or mah-jongg together, group members said. Other women said they support each other when they need help, such as being driven to have cataract surgery.

“In a short period of time, there’s a lot of camaraderie from women you just met,” said Meise, a retired paralegal who hosts The Ethels book group at her home. When one group member’s husband had surgery, the other women checked on her. During the recent deep freezes, they routinely asked each other, “How are you doing in this weather?” Meise said.

Susan Floss, 70, a retired public school technology teacher from Hicksville, said she now does things outside the group with a woman she met via the Long Island Women Over 50 Facebook group; they’ve gone out to dinner with their husbands, for instance.

‘IT CHANGED MY LIFE’

Rona Rosenblum Blau, 79, a retired Hebrew school principal from Levittown, said that after her husband died three years ago, she just really wanted to stay home and cry. But a friend she was out to dinner with grabbed her cellphone, searched for the Long Island Women Over 50 Facebook group and made her join.

“I took a chance,” Blau said, and attended her first event at Oheka Castle in Huntington. “I met some incredibly lovely women.” After her first meeting, she said to herself, “I think I’m going to do this again.” And she did.

Again and again.

Blau started leading events, such as February’s Galentine’s Day event at IHOP. She just came back from a trip to France that she said she took with two other women she met in the group. “It changed my life,” she said. “It really did.”