Foundation and Glasgow’s Golden Generation helping reduce loneliness and social isolation
EFDN member Celtic FC Foundation and Glasgow’s Golden Generation are delighted to reveal further details of a partnership between the two organisations which aims to reduce loneliness and isolation amongst Glasgow’s elderly population through the Football for Good Fund’s mental health strand.
Glasgow’s Golden Generation is Glasgow’s leading charity for the elderly and was initially established in 1948 as the Glasgow Old People’s Welfare Association. It was recognised that there was a need to tackle loneliness which impacted the lives of many older adults. To the present day, this remains central to the charity’s work.
The Foundation’s donation will go towards the organisation’s Befriending Service, which aims to support older adults over the age of 55 to reduce loneliness and isolation through daily calls, specialised phone calls, newsletters and online support.
Richard Donald, Chief Executive of Glasgow’s Golden Generation said: “What we try to do is to help alleviate isolation and loneliness amongst elderly people in Glasgow and our organisation has done that for over 70 years now.
“The pandemic had a massive effect on our delivery as three of our daycare centres in Glasgow all had to close. As a result we started making food deliveries and emergency food packages to our service users.
“The support from Celtic FC Foundation has been phenomenal – a real lifeline to Glasgow’s Golden Generation.
“So far we have delivered 20,000 food parcels to the community and made 25,000 befriending calls and we wouldn’t have been able to do that without the Foundation’s help.”
Tony Hamilton, Celtic FC Foundation Chief Executive, said: “We remain very grateful to all of our partners such as Glasgow’s Golden Generation for getting quickly to the most vulnerable people in our communities. The feedback in the video makes it all worthwhile.
“And we couldn’t do any of this without the backing we get from the Celtic supporters and our other funders, so an enormous thanks to all of them.”
Tony Hamilton presented the Football For Good Fund and Celtic’s COVID-19 Response at the 15th EFDN ‘#Morethanfootball’ Conference. You can download the presentation here.
