Our Queen's Award for Voluntary Service!

We are delighted and honoured to announce that been awarded The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service - the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK. We could not be prouder of our incredible volunteer family, whose hard work and dedication are at the heart of all we do.

We have supported those in our community struggling with loneliness for over 20 years. We have seen the positive impact of friendship where we provide quality time, a listening ear and focused attention on individuals who so often feel invisible and forgotten. We have seen 1000’s of lives transformed.

This last year we have been overwhelmed by the kindness, care and dedication of our volunteers during an intensely stressful year where the need to support those who feel isolated is greater than ever. This award will give our volunteers the recognition they so richly deserve for going above and beyond in very difficult circumstances and for continuing to provide friendship support both now and over many years. We are delighted that our volunteers are celebrated and recognised for the brilliant, life transforming work they do.

Our plans to celebrate

We have arranged three social events for our volunteers where we can reconnect and celebrate together. The award announcement falls during Volunteer Week, so we wanted to create lots of opportunities to have fun and to say ‘thank you’.  We have an evening outside in a local pub, a virtual quiz evening which is always very popular, and a community walk followed by delicious refreshments in a local park. We cannot wait to see lots of our volunteers face to face again after so long just meeting up virtually.

Our incredible volunteer family

Our volunteers regularly tell us that they get just as much out of their friendship with older people as the people they are supporting. Volunteers say how they love to hear tales of lives gone by, to realise that age is just a number and that meaningful connections are the most rewarding experiences in our lives. Our volunteers report how their wellbeing is improved knowing they have made someone’s day by providing that listening ear and how the small acts of kindness they show lead to such important and significant changes in mood and happiness levels.  We see how volunteering boosts confidence, improves our self-esteem, and gives meaning to our weeks. We love to celebrate friendship with all our members both young and old and see first-hand the satisfaction and joy this brings.

We are so proud and honoured to have facilitated such wonderful friendships over the years. We have connected 1000’s of people together and see the transforming difference this has made to those who have felt overlooked and forgotten. We have developed an effective way of supporting our hundreds of volunteers and many of our volunteers stay with us for years and years, some for over 20 years!

Regular feedback from our Link Friends says how they feel they are ‘living again’ how they now lead busy social lives with our program of groups, activities and parties and tell us that unexpectedly they now enjoy a renewed zest for life.

Our volunteers stepped up last year to show genuine care, kindness and friendship and we are so delighted that Link Visiting facilitated connection and meaningful support at such an isolating and fearful time.

Our plans for the future

For the immediate future, we want to ensure that we regain our energy after such a challenging and difficult year. We want to reconnect with all those we have not physically seen for so long and ensure we have the funds to continue and grow.

After that, we aim to grow our innovative pathway of support which leads people from isolation to social integration. From a point of crisis where we provide short term telephone support, to our longer-term face to face befriending relationship, leading to opportunities to join well-facilitated group activities and small local friendship groups with the aim of feeling integrated in the local community again. We also want to expand our work helping people with dementia feel connected too.

Lastly…

Receiving this award has given us increased motivation to meet the growing demand for our service. We hope that more people will want to join our volunteer team and see firsthand what a difference volunteering can make. We are so pleased to be able to publicly thank our incredible volunteers for all they have done to make lives worth living again. Link Visiting is so proud of all we have achieved, and we couldn’t do any of it without the skill, care and dedication of our amazing volunteers.