ChariTEA Of The Quarter: Time To Talk Befriending

What is ChariTEA?

We choose a new ChariTEA (Charity!) every quarter which is close to our hearts. They choose a blend that reflects them or what they support and we donate the profits of the blend to their cause!

For the quarter October 2019 to December 2019 our chosen ChariTEA was Time To Talk Befriending (TTTB). TTTB is a charity that was started to help people over 65 who feel chronic loneliness caused by social isolation.

The tea they chose as their blend was Vicky's Sponge Cake and we were thrilled to raise £1,607.75 for them!

 About Time To Talk Befriending

Time To Talk Befriending is local to Sussex and offered a personalised model of intergenerational befriending. They work with older people aged 65+ who experience feelings of chronic loneliness caused by social isolation.

 A report in 2017 by the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness reported that:

• More than 1 in 3 people aged 75+ say that feelings of loneliness are out of their control 
• For 3.6 million people aged 65+ television is the main form of company
• Weak social connection is as harmful to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day

Our Customer Service Manager, Georgina, is a volunteer befriender with TTTB and visits an older resident once a week to share a cup of tea and chat. She says of her experience 'meeting up once a week with Denise takes up so little of my time, but it means the world to her. She lives on her own and her family live overseas so she is mainly on her own. Her face lights up when I arrive and she loves sharing her many stories with me - we both get so much from my visits!'

What else did we do to support Time to Talk Befriending?

In the lead up to Christmas we ran a CommuniTEA Knit campaign where staff and customers made crochet squares, they did these through in store events and some even posted them to us! We then added some tea samples to the donated squares and gave them out to their members at their Christmas Party - they were a huge hit!

Our staff also got involved with helping out at some Tea & Talk social events that are run by Time to Talk to help bring isolated members of the community together. Our Teabirds were busy making sandwiches, washing up and, more importantly, spending time talking to the scheme members.

Time to Talk are always looking for new volunteers to support the growing number of scheme members that they work with. If you would like to volunteer or want to find out more you can check out their website www.tttb.org.uk or see their updates on Facebook.