Not long ago in Boyds, a woman in her 80s needed to change a lightbulb. Unable to stand on a chair thanks to recent knee surgery, she called an electrician who got the job done — for $100.

“She didn’t feel comfortable asking anyone else,” said Pastor Derek Longbrake, the spiritual leader of Boyds Presbyterian Church.

Longbrake and other volunteers in the quiet community northwest of Germantown are now organizing a network of helpers to make sure Boyds’ seniors have someone to call when they need to change a bulb, set up a laptop or get to a doctor’s appointment.

Boyds Village will resemble more than 250 other neighborhood networks across the nation collectively known as the Village Movement. The idea, first realized in Boston in 2002, is that neighbors assist seniors with tasks and errands so they can age safely in their homes.

But it’s also about staving off loneliness and physical decline, which tend to accelerate when older people lack social connections. For some seniors, who simply love their homes and neighborhoods and can’t picture themselves in senior developments or assisted living — or can’t afford it — a Village fills their needs.

In Maryland, dozens of Villages have sprouted up — in Montgomery, Anne Arundel, Prince George’s, Baltimore, Kent, Queen Anne’s, Somerset and Howard counties.

Montgomery County is a Village hotspot. It already has 25 of them, with more than 900 volunteers supporting about 8,000 residents. Villages range in size, but the average Montgomery County Village includes about 350 seniors and 40 volunteers. Villages have typically been concentrated Downcounty, and in relatively wealthy areas, including Bethesda, North Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac.

Villages are now in development in nine more Montgomery County communities, including Boyds, Burtonsville, Germantown, and Washington Grove. The movement’s current focus locally is on less urban and well-off areas where the needs are particularly high, organizers said.

The goal is to bring the Villages to “parts of the county that wouldn’t necessarily think about the Villages,” said Marjorie Goldman, outreach director for the Montgomery County Villages Consortium, a nonprofit launched in 2024 to grow and strengthen its Villages.

People “want to age in their homes,” she said. “They’re very loyal to where they live.”

Boyds, a community of about 9,500, is served by no metro station and few bus lines. Longbrake is among about 20 volunteers working to get the Boyds Village off the ground in the coming months.

The volunteers have held two meetings so far in Longbrake’s church, where they heard about the $100 lightbulb change. A third meeting is scheduled for January.

“It is gaining momentum,” said Beverly Rollins, a prospective Village volunteer who attended the most recent planning meeting for the Boyds Village in November. While Rollins and her husband can fend for themselves now, she said she hopes a Village in the future will help them avoid the loneliness older people often face in semi-rural places like Boyds.

“People are a little more isolated” in Boyds than they are in the Downcounty, she said.

Birth of a Village

As they plan to launch Boyds Village, Longbrake and fellow organizers are leaning on Pazit Aviv, a Montgomery County employee who has held the village coordinator job for 12 years and once sat on the board of a national organization that helps found and support Villages.

Aviv helps neighbors build the leadership team that will get a Village off the ground, and identifies county and state grants to sustain them.

In its 2026 budget, Montgomery County included $1.5 million in grants for groups that assist seniors, like the Villages. And Maryland this year, through its Department of Aging, offered $100,000 in grants for aging-in-place programs like the Villages.

The idea for the Boyds project formed after Longbrake ran into Goldman, an old friend, at the Deere Valley Farms’ ice cream window this summer. She recruited him over scoops of soft serve.

She told him that Boyds is just the sort of place the consortium wants to help grow more Villages. The nonprofit helps neighbors expand their volunteer base, secure funding and establish themselves as tax-exempt nonprofits — or join the movement under the umbrella of the consortium.

A good way to plant the seeds of Village, she said, is for residents to plan small social events, like a book club at the local library or a lecture at the elementary school. Invite everyone. See who shows up.

A Village takes root

As Boyds lays the groundwork for its Village, it can look to a recently developed one in Tamarack Triangle, located near Colesville in the northeastern corner of Silver Spring. Tamarack Triangle Village created its website over a year ago but really got going after it received a state grant in July.

Vernell DeWitty, 78, has lived in the diverse residential neighborhood of Tamarack Triangle for nearly 20 years. She likes watching kids play soccer in the street after school, and the mix of longtime residents and more recent arrivals. Neighbors move away and new families take their place. But even with the flux, she said, it has always felt like a “real community.”

DeWitty both organizes and participates in services and events in her Village, which isn’t uncommon. Villages take a pay-it-forward approach. Often younger, more active seniors will help set up a Village anticipating that they will one day use its services.

In its first few months, Tamarack Triangle Village has hosted game nights, potluck dinners and a weekend walking club for seniors. They hope to soon organize drivers to take seniors to doctor appointments.

The Village is already having an impact.

“I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 25 years, and I didn’t know anyone until this,” said Debra Street, who joined Tamarack Triangle Village’s walking club early on a recent Saturday morning, when the temperature hovered in the low 30s. “Now, people are getting to know each other.”

Along the two-mile jaunt, Street and five bundled-up companions pointed out new neighbors, old farms, fallen trees, a dentist’s house and their own homes.

Street’s husband waved at them from the porch. The group laughed as they walked, watching their neighborhood wake up.

“It’s neighbors helping neighbors,” said DeWitty. “That’s the basis of what the Villages are all about.”