At midmorning, Lisa Carfagna, a marketing staffer for the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, took a brief break from working at home on Long Island and called the Rubins on the Upper East Side.

They were doing fine, Seymour Rubin, 89, assured her over a speakerphone.

“We try to have a project every day,” said Shirley Rubin, 84. “Today, I’m making a beef stew for the first time in 40 years.”

“If I’m here tomorrow,” her husband put in, “you’ll know it was good.”

When the coronavirus outbreak forced the Y to shutter last month — leaving participants in its senior program bereft of their usual lectures, classes and exercise programs — about 70 staff members quickly volunteered to make weekly calls to all 650 of them. Ms. Carfagna regularly checks in with 25.

Like many cultural organizations, the Y has turned to digital technology — streamed concerts and lectures, classes on Zoom, discussion groups via conference call — to keep its older patrons engaged.