Link-up is a logical step says charity

Two charities have merged in a bid to ensure no older person spends Christmas alone.

Community Christmas (CC) has joined Contact the Elderly, one of the country’s leading groups for the elderly.

CC was founded in 2011 by community transport volunteer Caroline Billington, and it collates Christmas Day events that are open to older people who would otherwise be spending the day alone.

Contact the Elderly is a national charity that tackles isolation and loneliness through face to face contact. With a volunteer network of over 11,000, the charity provides a regular social connection to more than 6,500 older people every month through 850 groups across the UK, making the link-up a logical step.

Community Christmas started as an event listing website but has grown substantially over the last seven years with support from, among others, the Jo Cox Foundation and the Big Lottery Fund.

When the site was established, there were just four events listed. The following year this number grew to 74, and in 2017 Community Christmas passed the 500 mark.

The merger marks a major milestone in an important year for Contact the Elderly - six months ago, the charity appointed Meryl Davies to chief executive.

It’s not the first time that Contact the Elderly has merged with another third sector organisation. In 2016 the NBFA Assisting the Elderly became part of Contact the Elderly merging its funds and assets with the charity.

Billington, founder of Community Christmas, said: “I volunteered on Christmas Day over ten years ago and it changed my life. I knew then that I wanted to focus my time and energy on creating something that would benefit older people for years to come.

“Now, Community Christmas is its own entity, it’s growing organically with more and more events and activities being added to the site every day and for it to grow and succeed as I know it can, the organisation needs to become part of something bigger. I can’t wait to see how it will change and evolve under the leadership of Contact the Elderly and create more community connections.”

To coincide with the merger, Contact the Elderly commissioned new research to highlight the impact of societal pressures on families over Christmas and the impact it can have on older people left to spend Christmas alone.

According to the charity, almost 20% of us worry about upsetting family members when making Christmas plans despite the fact that 44% of people make the same festive plans every year. And despite the fact that Christmas Day is just six weeks away, more than three quarters of the British public still don’t know how they plan on spending the day.