Let’s go girls: Sacramento meet-up clubs help women form community in adulthood

On a summer Tuesday evening, a group of 18 young women gathered at Alma Wine Bar in downtown Sacramento — most of them complete strangers to one another.

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By the end of the evening, fueled by a few glasses of wine and a handful of casual board games, new friendships were forged and potentially long-lasting connections made. That’s exactly what Carly Grider, the organizer who hosted the evening hangout event, hoped for.

If you’ve ever said “it’s so hard making friends as an adult,” women around Sacramento like Grider are working to end that epidemic.

In recent years, an abundance of girl-focused social groups around California’s capital region have popped up, organizing events of all kinds for area women to meet and form relationships.

“It’s vital, you know, for our livelihood,” Grider said. “I think one of the biggest downfalls in life is ever feeling like you’re alone.”

A wide variety of activities — from group walks to bouquet making classes to karaoke nights — are put together by group leaders like Grider, who started Girls Night Out Sacramento in February 2025 after struggling to meet new people in the three years she had lived in the capital city.

Grider first met other women in Sacramento through online spaces like Bumble BFF and TikTok, which helped her see the possibilities of providing a more structured space for developing community.

“I was able to meet quite a few people from both of those (online spaces), and I ended up having this one day where I met up with (them),” Grider said. “All these women were complete strangers to me 48 hours before we came, and now they’re people that I can now call my friends. So from there, I just kind of realized there was a need.”

Making space for all women

Other social club organizers around Sacramento had similar experiences starting their own groups.

Magali Peralta Hernandez was unemployed and feeling lonely at the start of 2026. She took walks often with her cat, Martini, but felt frustrated not having the daily human connection she would with her coworkers.

Three months into her unemployment, Peralta Hernandez started the Sacramento Walk Club, inviting women around town to join her on twice-weekly walks — on Monday evenings and Saturday mornings. One week after her first group walk in March, Peralta Hernandez finally found a job.

“It was a very busy first month, because the walk club took off kind of quickly,” Peralta Hernandez said. “It was my first time leading a group ever, so I was a little nervous. All the girls that came, they were all by themselves, and ever since then, it’s just … been growing organically.”

Attending one of Grider’s events inspired Madison Torres to develop a social club of her own, focused on affordability. Just Us Girls Sac features intimate events with typically no more than 30 participants, such as morning Pilates in the park, a Christmas lights walk through the Fabulous Forties in East Sacramento, a pumpkin carving day and more.

Many of her events cost $15 or less, and Torres offers discounts or other financial support for women who want to attend but don’t have the financial means to.

“I want to make sure that girls are able to come to an event and not have to worry,” Torres said. “I don’t really personally mind paying out of pocket for something because I do work my 9-5, and I just really want to build up a community.”

So far, many of the clubs have found instant success. Grider’s first event had 75 attendees, Torres’s inaugural park painting afternoon had 20 women and Peralta Hernandez’s first advertised walk group had 15 participants join. Since starting the walk club, Peralta Hernandez has also developed a 21-plus nightlife group called Girlie Afters, which is hosting its first event Saturday.

Geneva Williams, founder of For the Girls Sacramento, welcomed more than a dozen women to her group’s first brunch event in March.

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After her mother died, Williams discovered she didn’t truly know herself outside of her career as an event planner, and she figured she wasn’t the only woman with that experience.

“I started asking … without having kids, without having a career, without having your husband or whatever it is, who is that woman?” Williams said. “I started realizing that women tend to wear so many multiple hats that they tend to forget about themselves.”

Similar to Torres, Williams organizes wellness activities that often feature fellow women-owned small businesses around Sacramento. Her events often gather groups of older women, many of whom found the club in the last two months as it went locally viral on social media.

“Every single event since June has been new women,” Williams said. “They are coming back, and they are wanting to be a part of (the group) because they see the genuineness of the community.”

All the community group organizers expressed awe and respect for one another, as they all share one core mission — supporting and uniting girls and women in the region.

“The more the merrier,” Grider said about the plethora of social groups around Sacramento. “There’s something for everybody, which is incredible … What a blessing that our city has so many different social clubs.”

Finding your people

Don’t be fooled by the ease of conversations and the loud laughter — many of the women at the Girls Night Out board game night on Tuesday had never attended one of the social club’s events before, and most came on their own.

“I’ve been here for a couple of years, and I’ve just taken some time in solitude … I decided it was time to enter society again and start socializing,” said Andrea Gerkus, a first-time attendee at Tuesday’s event.

Though the wine and games night had only just started, Gerkus said she was already feeling good vibes from some of the girls she met and that she would return to another Girls Night Out event in the future.

Frequent flyers with the group, like Shelby Brendle, make a concerted effort to include newcomers like Gerkus, remembering the times they first put themselves out there.

“I was really nervous the first time (I came to Girls Night Out),” Brendle said. “You kind of think about high school a little bit, like ‘Oh are the girls going to be nice?’ As you get older, the girlhood really does grow.”

At a Girls Night Out event, Brendle discovered one of the girls was her neighbor, and the pair are now best friends.

“Every time I come, I meet new people,” Brendle said. “Even if we don’t do something on the outside, I’ll see them again at the event and have someone to talk to … it’s just been great.”

The best way to keep up with these social clubs, and countless more around the greater Sacramento region, is through their TikTok, Instagram and other social media accounts.

“Women are focusing on their individuality, and we are in the generation where we as women can do kind of whatever we want,” Torres said. “It just makes me happy and proud to see women really taking a hold of their lives and building something with their whole creativity.”

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