Friends Across the Ages

Friends Across the Ages, Inc. sponsors nursing home group activities and also trains volunteers to visit nursing home residents weekly on a one-on-one basis.

Website: http://www.acrosstheages.org/getInvolved/

Contact: (352) 381-1117

Address: P.O. Box 14698, Gainesville, FL, 32604

What they do: Friends Across the Ages, Inc. sponsors nursing home group activities and also trains volunteers to visit nursing home residents weekly on a one-on-one basis. They seek to form friendships with and reach out to people who live in nursing homes in Gainesville, especially the forgotten and lonely.

What YOU can do to help: The most common ways to volunteer with Friends Across the Ages is participating in one-on-one volunteering and participating in group activities.

One-on-one Volunteering:

One-on-one Volunteers are matched with residents of nursing homes. Volunteers commit to visiting the resident one hour at a specific time each week. Possible activities that one-on-one volunteers participate in are eating dinner together, watching a sports event or TV show on TV, reading a book, playing a board game or card game, helping them write a letter to family/friends, and talking together about various topics. Volunteers will have a mentor that helps acquaint them with the nursing home and residents. Since there are set visitation times each week at each nursing home, volunteers will also get to see and interact with the other volunteers. To volunteer, fill out the volunteer application: http://www.acrosstheages.org/getinvolved/application.asp. An orientation appointment will be scheduled at their office. At the orientation appointment, you should bring the following items:

*Driver’s license

*Calendar

*2 references (their names and phone numbers)

Group Activities:

To volunteer with the group activities that Friends Across the Ages sponsors at nursing homes, fill out the contact form on their website: http://www.acrosstheages.org/contact/. To find a list of group activities held each month, check out the website: http://www.acrosstheages.org/news/. Some examples of group activities are arts and crafts, bingo games, birthday parties, singing events, and nursing home outings.