Heart-warming map shows events for people who might spend Christmas alone

The map aims to ensure that no one is alone at Christmas
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Alexandra Richards21 December 2017

A Christmas map has been put together showing events for people who are planning to spend Christmas alone.

Premier Christian Radio created an interactive map of venues around the UK which will be holding events for people to attend on Christmas Day regardless of faith or background.

The map has been created as part of the radio show’s Christmas Alone project which aims to help people find events to attend on Christmas day so that they don’t have to spend it alone.

Loretta Andrews, a broadcaster on the Premier Drive Time radio show told the Standard that she started the project five years ago with her colleague Chris Byland.

“It started with a conversation where we said that we hated the idea of anyone being alone at Christmas,” she said.

The pair realised that Premier Christian Radio was in a unique position as it had contact with a number of churches which already provided events during the Christmas period.

Ms Andrews said: “We had the idea of providing a match making service which would match venues with people who had nowhere to go.”

Since launching the project in 2012, the Christmas Alone project has worked year on year to encourage churches, business and charities to take part and put on an event.

Ms Andrews said that this year the project had a huge response with 369 venues registering to take part.

Many of the registered venues have agreed to provide transport for people to and from the events.

To create the map, Premier Christian partnered with Community Christmas, an organisation which encourages communities to organise events for the elderly on Christmas day.

People who are looking for a place to go at Christmas can click on their area on the map and will be provided with details about the event and a contact number for the venue.

Loneliness is an issue that is increasingly affecting the elderly in the UK. Last month, Age UK said that almost one million elderly people admitted to feeling lonelier over the festive period.

Community Christmas founder, Caroline Billington, said she set up the organisation as she wanted to take action to address the issue of loneliness in the UK.

She said: “We hope that by using Christmas day as a trigger we can create long term connections for people”.

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