May is Older Americans Month. It’s a time to celebrate and honor the older adults in our lives and the contributions they have and continue to make. But it’s also time to examine what challenges this group faces. The 2026 Older Americans Month theme is Champion Your Health. One of the major health impacts for older adults may come as a surprise to readers: social isolation, which leads to loneliness.
What Is Social Isolation?
Social isolation occurs when people lack strong relationships, contact, or support from others. This can happen at any age, but it’s especially noticeable in older adults, who may be coping with the loss of loved ones, disabilities that restrict their ability to go out in public or host people in their homes, unemployment, or lack of access to transportation.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reports that when neglected, social isolation can lead to significant mental and physical health issues. Those issues include increased risk of depression and anxiety, heart disease, stroke, and dementia. And it’s not a small portion of the older adult population that faces this; JAMA points to a 2023 national poll that found 37 percent of US adults aged fifty to eighty experienced feelings of loneliness, with 34 percent saying they felt socially isolated.
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Addressing Social Isolation
With over a third of the older adult population struggling with social isolation and loneliness, finding people and organizations to help them is clearly vital. Once again, libraries are aware of the crisis and are creating a myriad of solutions in their communities.
Libraries are uniquely positioned to address social isolation for many reasons, including being open and fee-free to members of their communities and through their wide range of partnerships with community-led groups and other organizations, including legal and health groups.
What’s more, working within the community often means the programming is low-cost, community-driven, and able to support seniors without needing to run every program internally. Given the work libraries do to support memory care and brain health, addressing social isolation is a natural extension of that mission.
The ways libraries do that are so varied that they can’t all be listed here. But a few examples of initiatives designed specifically for older adults include:
- Senior social clubs
- Intergenerational story times
- Lifelong learning events
- Health and wellness programs
- Book clubs
- Memory cafes
- Technology training and workshops
Note that many of these involve partnerships with other people and organizations in their communities.
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Geezers in Sneakers Getting Coffee
One program that’s had a huge impact on its community is Orono Public Library’s (OPL) Geezers in Sneakers Getting Coffee partnership. The initiative may have a tongue-in-cheek name, but its mission is serious.
It began in February 2024, when an Orono Town Council member asked retired resident Harlan Onsrud to create a walking and social group for older men who felt isolated. OPL became the group’s gathering spot, opening early on walking days and providing meeting space and staff support. The group eventually opened to women, too, and now meets twice a week for a thirty-minute walk followed by coffee hour in the library’s multipurpose room.
Geezers in Sneakers has bloomed into something larger than its thirty-minute walking plan. The group has the support community members, who frequently wave and chat with the walkers. A new annual event, the “Kids vs. Geezers Race-Walk,” cheerfully pits kids under twelve against the geezers, with the kids earning “Orono Super Kid” stickers. The time spent in the coffee hour is social, but it’s also productive; the group makes donations and organizes events such as talks, potlucks, and community service projects.
The program won a 2025 I Partner With My Public Library Award from the UNC-Greensboro School of Education, which celebrates community collaborators. The award citation notes, “The partnership turns the Orono Public Library into both a health hub and a social commons. It combats isolation through joy, movement, humor, and shared responsibility—demonstrating how libraries can anchor community well-being in even the smallest towns.”
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While the walks are promoted to the older adult community, no one of any age or background is turned away. Members point to the social aspect that makes it attractive to join in, gaining a sense of camaraderie and belonging that doesn’t happen when they’re alone or working out solo at a gym. Group members have formed friendships that extend beyond the twice-weekly events—and to date, regardless of weather, no walk has been canceled.
In fact, Geezers in Sneakers brings more people to the library each week than any other organization, which solidifies the library’s reputation as a community hub. Attendees often check out and return materials during their visits, increasing the library’s circulation. Group members have even been known to wash coffee cups and clean the floors after meetings, wanting to do their part to keep the library in good condition, which in turn makes the group even more welcome.
It sounds simple—just inviting people to walk together a couple of times a week and give them a space to sit down after to chat and drink coffee. But underneath that simple surface is a program that helps older adults age in place, feel a sense of community and belonging, and honor their strengths. What better way to celebrate Older Americans Month than with something as positive as this?
Want to help seniors in your community overcome social isolation and loneliness? Check out your local library to see what resources they have for older adults, and share this story with the seniors in your life.