Every year, CareYourWay based in Totnes hosts a community-driven event that changes many lives at Christmas. A Present for a Pensioner gathers local businesses and individuals who want to do good within the community to provide people who are spending their Christmas alone, or who have seen particularly difficult times as of late, with luxury hampers.

They were inspired to create a Present for a Pensioner after recognising the impact of loneliness in our community. With recent studies highlighting the impacts, loneliness is likely to increase the chance of death by up to 26% and could be as bad as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

The number of over-50s experiencing loneliness is set to reach two million by 2025/6. This compares to around 1.4 million in 2016/7 – a 49% increase in 10 years.

Half a million older people go at least five or six days a week without seeing or speaking to anyone at all.

Well over half (59%) of those aged 85 and over and 38% of those aged 75 to 84 live alone.

Two fifths all older people (about 3.9 million) say the television is their main company.

After recognising the harrowing impact of loneliness, the team wanted to create an event that brought our local communities together. CareYourWay is franchising across the country, and all franchisees will also take a part in this event, holding their own local Present for a Pensioner in their area. They are passionate and devoted to combatting loneliness on a much larger scale, and hope they can make a great change this Christmas. They believe by sharing and getting as many eyes on this event as possible, they can increase the amount of participation, resulting in many more lives being changed for the better at a special time of year.

Deputy-Chief Inspector of the CQC - South West Deborah Ivanova said:

“The Christmas season can be a time of loneliness for vulnerable people. Reaching out to them with the annual “present for a pensioner” project is something to applaud. It is lovely to see such a wonderful project, letting those people trying to live an independent life know that they are not alone and there is a wider community out there ready to support and befriend them. This is something to commend."