Young at heart

The social media post of a senior gathered a lot of attention and her daughter came up with the idea of creating a community.

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 21.04.2026, 14:00

The social media post of a senior gathered a lot of attention and her daughter came up with the idea of creating a community, which, based on the age of most frequent followers, she called the “50 Plus Community”. But people also started to want to meet and socialise. Veronica Oancea, the founder of this community, started creating events at the request of her followers, as she told us:

“A community of people in the second half of their lives, full of zest for life and the desire to try new things, to experience all kinds of activities, who still want to learn,  be useful, be present in their own lives and those of their children. It’s the people who came to us, that gave us things to do and we kept this idea. Everything we do is based on what people ask us to, it’s they who come with the ideas, and it’s all based on interaction, on getting them involved, not of them following us. We have a digitalization workshop, last week we had one about CHATGPT, which was a lot of fun, we learnt English to use when going abroad on holiday. These are people who travel a lot of and like to be independent, and we help them.”

We got to meet some of the members of this community at a party organised for them, as Veronica Oancea, the founder of the 50 Plus Community, details:

“Now we are in a room where we have a lot of people who have come to dance and socialise. It’s the kind of event in which we encourage interaction and direct contact, so they get to meet more people, because at this stage in life loneliness is very oppressive. We organise trips and we work with the big tour operators and they give us discounts and we recommend them which agencies to go to. We have a group that is going to China, now, in May, 20 people. They all know each other. It’s a completely different experience when they go in a group with people they know. We oganise movement workshops, they are called Mind and Body, where we have a personal development area, but we also do Yoga and Zumba and Thai-Chi. And because authenticity is very important for us, all the trainers are ladies from the 50 Plus group, all of them are over 50, the Tai-Chi lady is over 70 and they are all very slim and an example for the other ladies. In our group about 70% are women. We would like more men to join, but that hasn’t happened.”

Although there aren’t many men joining the group, the men attending the party were full of enthusiasm. Veronica Oancea once more:

“We have people who are in their 50s and 60s, 70s, 80s, but tonight we have with us one of the members who is the oldest, 95 years old and who came to us through a former student, a 50-plus member who is retiring soon. And they came together and now they join quite often. He is a very present person and an example for the rest of us, about how you can be brave and full of life at this age.

Eugen Drumen, 72, who was also at the party, told us that he learned about this group from a friend, who encouraged him to join:

“Go to  50 Plus Community, you’ll feel great, he told me. And I came here and… it’s great, what can I say?! We feel great! From December until now. Until we turn 100!”

After that, two ladies joined our conversation. Ileana is 58 years old and she told us about her experience in the 50 Plus Community:

“I’ve been coming for a month and a half, I discovered them on the internet, I was fascinated from the first evening I came, I continued, this is the fourth time I’ve come here. I’m interested in the themed events and the vitality and energy of the organisers and participants.”

Maria, who was also at the party, says she feels as if she is 19:

“I am 19 years old at heart! This is what we feel here: young! That’s why I come here, because I feel young. I don’t know if it shows, but I feel very good. I like to dance, I like that we communicate and I’m going to come again. My sister was a ballerina and my brother a former rugby player. I am from Constanţa and I feel very good here.”

Veronica Oancea added that her approach is the most natural thing:

“We talk a lot about parenting and about children and about what we do with them and how we help them, but we talk very little about the other side of life, where we need support from the young, from our extended family. Because these people are going through a period that we can compare to puberty, adolescence, because there are things that happen in the body, that we must be aware of, that we must be helped to overcome, so that we can have a very good quality of life until the end.”