Bingley-based over-50s home shopping retailer, Damart, has donated £10,000 through its charity foundation to The Silver Line – the UK’s only, 24-hour, free, confidential helpline specifically for isolated and lonely older people.
The Silver Line has seen an unprecedented increase in demand with older people calling the Helpline for friendship and reassurance in these incredibly challenging times.
The donation, from Damart’s On Senior’s Side charity foundation, will help The Silver Line answer calls to its Helpline, providing comfort and support to vulnerable older people when they need it the most. The Helpline is available 365 days a year, day and night.
The Foundation, which was set up at the end of 2018, provides financial support to registered organisations focused on helping senior citizens. This is its second donation to The Silver Line.
Damart’s online merchandise manager, Claire Brown said: “As a business, we’re passionate about helping older people and so we’re delighted to be able to support The Silver Line with this donation. The charity has experienced overwhelming demand for its services because of the pandemic, a source of great worry for callers and this money will help ensure those calls can be answered.
“We have partnered with the charity for the past few years and have witnessed the vital work that they do to help tackle loneliness with older people, an issue that really resonates with our core customer-base.”
The pandemic has made an already dire situation worse for many older people. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, 1.4 million older people often felt lonely. As the UK faces new restrictions due to rising coronavirus cases, many more older people will be facing social isolation and may feel that they have no one to turn to.
Dame Esther Rantzen DBE, President and Founder of The Silver Line said: “We are delighted to receive another donation from Damart’s On Senior’s Side charity foundation. As the UK faces more restrictions and uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic, we know that more older people will need to turn to The Silver Line for friendship and reassurance in the coming weeks and months. The support of Damart will help The Silver Line to answer more calls to our Helpline so we can be there for thousands of older people when they need us the most.”
-ENDS-
For further information, please contact Carys Barker carys.barker@mcg.agency
About The Silver Line
The Silver Line (0800 4 70 80 90) is the only UK-wide free, national, confidential helpline open every day and night, offering information, friendship and advice to older people.
The cost of calls to the helpline, and The Silver Line’s other friendship services, are paid for by the donations it receives.
68% of callers contact the helpline because they are lonely or isolated, 90% live alone, and 54% say they have no one else to speak to.
The Silver Line has joined forces with Age UK, becoming a subsidiary charity of Age UK.
There are thought to be around 1.2 million chronically lonely older people across the UK. That number is set to rise to 2 million by 2026.
More details on The Silver Line website: www.thesilverline.org.uk
