The addition of a few more core team members scaled Kepes’s grassroots volunteering efforts into a full-fledged charity. Kepes heard about Taverna’s difficulty finding seniors for his student volunteers to connect with, and the two got together to see what could be done. While some small scale successes occurred, it proved difficult to scale up the effort. One solution was to pivot to virtual visits or phone calls between students and seniors. Since 2008, students taking Taverna’s course on neurodegenerative diseases have visited long-term care homes to chat with and befriend seniors. “You can’t put a value on the feeling of being valued.” Kepes graduated from the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy in 2013.ĬompanionLink really took off through another U of T connection: a call for assistance from Franco Taverna, a professor in the Human Biology Program. “The volunteers forge an intergenerational connection with older adults,” Kepes says. Over time, Kepes, who graduated from the Master of Global Affairs program at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy in 2013, brought more friends and acquaintances into the fold and CompanionLink was established. The experience inspired Kepes to reach out to the long-term care home to see if he, his wife and a close friend could speak with the other residents to keep them company. Kepes was forced to rely on video and phone calls to keep in contact with his grandmother amid strict isolation protocols. His grandfather passed away a few weeks later. The charity was inspired by his experience with his own grandparents, who contracted COVID-19 while living in a long-term care facility in 2020. A&S alum David Kepes is helping reduce isolation and loneliness among older adults and seniors with his charity, CompanionLink, by connecting them to volunteers through regular calls.
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