Ms. McWhinney-Morse was in her mid-60s when she and a handful of others her age started laying the groundwork for Beacon Hill Village. But younger villagers are surfacing. Jenn Prunty founded My Glacier Village in the Flathead Valley of Montana four years ago, when she was 49. Kathy O’Kane started volunteering at her village in Pennsylvania, Lancaster Downtowners, in 2018, when she was 51, with an eye toward eventually retiring to it. And Conner Sandefur, 44, joined Fearrington Cares, a village in Pittsboro, N.C., two years ago.

The movement’s caring, common-sense core drew them. Members of these grass-roots nonprofits band together to identify needs familiar to aging people, like shoveling snow or figuring out Zoom, and set up a network of volunteers and affordable professionals, like plumbers and electricians, to meet them. Social programs that might include lectures and exercise classes help chip away at isolation. Some villages have dozens of members, others hundreds. Some are run by volunteers, others by paid staff. They serve urban, suburban and rural areas. Most villages rely on member dues for at least half their funding, but some get donations and grants from the government and foundations.

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