One after the other smiling women with glittering grey hair, nestled beneath outrageous red hats, shuffled out of the community meeting room of the Levittown Public Library. A few were in the process of catching their breath as the others continued to laugh and giggle.

Queen Jean Caprera, Vice Queen Elizabeth, also known as Betty Driver, and Helen Schneider took up the tail end of the procession. The three women are members of the Red Hat Society, along with 20 other women.

Some say that naming a society after a colorful hat is a silly thing, but the Red Hat Society is no joke. It is one of the largest "disorganizations" of women in the world, spanning from North America to the United Kingdom, all the way down to New Zealand and Australia; but the ladies don't aim to stop there.

This smiling and extremely supportive society was inadvertently begun by Sue Ellen Cooper of Fullerton, CA in 2001, after reading a 1961 poem titled Warning, by Jenny Joseph, which begins, "When I am an old woman..." Within the poem Joseph writes of red hats and purple outfits, a trend made literal as Cooper and her friends began to gather for tea in their red and purple attire.

According to a representative from the Red Hat Society, there are over 1 million members worldwide with almost 40,000 in over 30 countries. Over the past five years chapters have been springing up across the country and Levittown has recently seen the emergence of two more chapters tallying the town's total to seven.

Queen Caprera, from the very beginning, has been in the mix of these emerging chapters and is now running one of the chapters herself. Caprera's chapter is aptly named the Sophisticats, where the women are starting to greet one another by pretending to lick their paws and brush them along their faces, the Queen said, as she mimicked the feline movements.

"We came up with the original name of the Red Hat Chili Peppers, and that was our group name, but then I didn't like it and changed it to the Sophisticats... which gives us a little more flexibility," she said. "Plus it's classy," she added.

Queen Caprera began the Sophisticats' chapter in February 2004 after she left the original group she belonged to, which just didn't feel right for her.

"I'm not sure if I wanted to be in charge or what," the Queen quipped.

She knew exactly why she left and what convinced her to become a chapter queen. It was the continuous inactivity on the part of her previous chapter.

"Some of the other groups unfortunately sort of sit back and wait for somebody else to make the arrangements, they just don't participate," she said. "I've had a couple of women join my group and say, 'we were just sick and tired of going out every month to dinner, we didn't want to do that'," she added.

To women across the world and these three Sophisticats being part of the Red Hat Society is much more than sharing meals and laughing away the passing moments together.

"Most of your life you're devoted to other people, your husband, your children, your mother and father," Queen Caprera said. "And now the time has come to devote attention to yourself."

The concept of women over the age of 50 sitting back and paying attention to themselves and their needs, which all three Sophisticats are, happens to be the overarching belief of the Red Hat Society and Vice Queen Driver strongly accepts the belief.

"Being over 50 and having done other things, even volunteering or employed work and everything else Jean said, then its time to have fun, but that doesn't mean that we don't care about each other," the Vice Queen said. "Because we do, and we support each other too."

While joining red gloved hands and spreading the joy of companionship may come naturally to these ladies, a main point of the Red Hat Society's mission is, "to gain higher visibility for women in our age group and to reshape the way we are viewed by today's culture," according to the society's website.

"It's really to have fun and relax, and you're doing it with your peers, not male peers but female peers," Schneider said, "most of whom are in the same position as you are."

To be one of these jovial red hatters is not hard; the only responsibility, according to the society's website, is to have fun. When it comes to rules there are no official rules, hence it being a disorganization.

"So you really take things as you go," Queen Caprera said.

There are suggestions, though. The red hat must be worn while participating in activities and meetings, as well as purple attire. The second pertains to age. While a majority of the members are 50 years old or older, there are members who aren't; and they are the pink hatters. There have even been times when chapters were started by pink hatters, but the queen must stick to the pink hat and lavender attire until her 50th birthday.

The clashing purple and red wardrobe is another suggestion that is taken rather seriously within the disorganization.

"The dressing up idea is like when you were a child and you dressed up in your mother's clothes and they were outrageous looking," said Queen Caprera. "We try to get as outrageous with our clothes as possible, and that's why the hats are decorated really wild. A lot of us since we joined this group have an awful lot of purple clothing in our wardrobes now," she said getting up from her chair to show off the new chapter shirt donning a grey kitten on a purple tee with neon beads dangling from the bottom.

Since the main responsibilities are to have fun and devote time to yourself, the Red Hat Society and its chapters rarely take part in charitable events, but chapters are encouraged to do so if they please. In the case of the Sophisticats they love their town and their fellow feline friends, but when it comes to volunteering it is something they will do on their own time, not the chapter's.

"There are so many groups out there, but this one is more for us, we want to enjoy ourselves and do the things we never had a chance to do," Queen Caprera said. "It's sort of a slip back to childhood in some degree."

For more information about the Red Hat Society or to find a local chapter, visit www.redhatsociety.com.