A bona fide dynamo, Meredith Oppenheim is the founder of Vitality Society, a new online and offline community for people 60 and better to be at their best. A graduate of the Harvard Business School, she has spent 30-plus years serving older people, working nearly two decades as an executive in the senior housing industry. Oppenheim earned a U.S. Congressional Award for her work. Her latest project, Vitality Society, now has close to 5,000 members who join the many online classes on fitness, wellness, and enrichment, led by leading coaches in their fields. A New York City resident, she and her husband spend the summers in the Berkshires while their daughter goes to camp. “I love this area and how engaged people are,” she says. “It’s wonderful to see the intergenerational families on a blanket at Tanglewood.”

I was born and raised in Monmouth County, New Jersey. As a teenager, when my friends would go candy striping, I helped my grandparents stay healthy and well. I started cooking for them and saw that my grandfather enjoyed what I was making. I began cooking for other seniors and wrote a cookbook. By the end of high school, I had found my passion serving seniors, and over the next 30 years have worked with this underserved and overlooked population.

I went into the industry of senior housing, working for some of the largest operators in the industry. While I was overseeing a large portfolio of these operators, my father was ill, and I thought, what am I going to do with my mother if something happens to my father? She, like most baby boomers, wouldn’t want to go into a senior living facility. My mother said, you need to figure out what all these baby boomers are going to do.

I began to ask seniors what they needed and why to create a fulfilling, exciting life. I spent two years studying through focus groups and surveys, starting with groups in Lenox and Ghent, then expanding to major cities. I wanted to find out what would be interesting to seniors that wasn’t being offered in senior housing.

It was clear in these focus groups that the concept of vitality was important. The theme of remaining the best version of yourself was paramount to these people. Their joy at being together in these focus groups, with the opportunity to discuss and connect, was so compelling and interesting. Expanding your social circle later in life is vitally important. People need to feel connected.

I launched Vitality Society in 2020 with eight guiding principles: Be, Do, Ed, Go, Ha, Hi, Om, and Oy. When Covid hit, it changed the whole profile of who needed and wanted us, and how to access us. We were ready and live. Almost two-and-a-half years later, people are engaging with us on a daily basis. We have 20 classes online each week, and our members show up on average five times a week. They’ve done something pretty extraordinary: they have committed to their well being. We offer the very best coaches on the stage nationally or internationally, with a range of class types and intensities all designed specifically for people 60 and better.

Vitality Society presents a positive spin on aging that allows members to nurture and enjoy their lives. They’re thriving. And over 95% of them renew their memberships month over month. On Sunday nights our programs are free, so anybody can experience Vitality Society. In New York our members get together about once a month, creating relationships that are forming offline. I’ve gotten to know members and go out of my way to see them. My heart and soul are in this business.

Rural Intelligence readers are invited to sign up to Vitality Society and will receive a free month of membership. Click here for the special offer from founder Meredith Oppenheim.

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