New York City has a "virtual senior center" http://selfhelp.net/virtual-senior-center-articles that I think is a kind of neat model; I've looked into the senior centers in my community but the social demographics of my community doesn't quite fit me and I find the pickings pretty "lean" for what interests me.

http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2...-leaving-home/

I like to consider the difficulties of aging; transportation/driving/getting out-and-about, for example. I thought up a low-cost, subscription, "car and driver"/taxi sort of thing for the elderly, a kind of non-profit association scheme I liked a couple years ago.

I live in a university-rich community and thought hiring social work/gerontology students to be drivers as they work their way through school, kind of helper/friends of the elderly members, one would match up the individual case load with the student and provide the elderly member with someone they could get to know and trust as well as give the student some real-life experiences working with the elderly.

It would not be perfect; one would also screen members so they'd have to be able to get along with a driver as well as the driver have to get along with them; hopefully each accepting/choosing the other through interviews. If no one wanted to be driver to a person, didn't like their personality, it would be a matter of putting them on a waiting list or otherwise explaining there was no one available at this time to drive them.

But, there would be differing programs one could choose, one would set up a basic, sort-of schedule (X trips to the grocery store and Y medical a month for Z dollars) or there would be add-on's so there was greater flexibility of "when" or "what" (night out, being dropped off X place and time and picked up Y place and time). Because it would be non-profit and, hopefully, there would be grants, even poorer elderly could get the basic help for little or no fee; there would be a sliding scale of service prices.