Telephone befrienders wanted in Scarborough to help charity
Age UK is wanting more volunteers to call up an older person to have a chat
A charity in Scarborough is looking for more volunteers to help with one of its services.
Age UK is wanting more telephone befrienders to call up older people who are feeling lonely.
Tracey Armstrong is the town's volunteer and activities co-ordinator and she said: "Sometimes they grow into friendships as well so once they feel comfortable enough with each other they go out for coffee or go for a talk, so we do have a friendship group and we're always looking for volunteers.
"If anybody's got a spare hour a week that would like to ring an older person, get in touch with me and we'll match you up with somebody. It's a lovely service to do. I used to do the face-to-face one but we tend not to do face-to-face at the moment beacuse of everything that's happening in the world.
"The older people always ring and say how lovely it is just to hear a voice at the other end of the phone even if it's just once a week. The befriending service has been going for a long time now so we do have what I call our original befrienders and then we have our new ones that we found during lockdown.
"If the older person's got any problems like financial issues or if they have Covid and they can't go shopping, then the befriender will ring me and I will find somebody to help them to do some shopping for them or whatever they need."
Find out more about Age UK Scarborough here or contact Tracey at tracey@ageukscarborough.org