Charity Adopt a Grandparent is seeking older people who would benefit from an intergenerational friendship.

The charity, which was set up to combat loneliness by matching younger volunteers with older “grandparents”, currently has more volunteers than older people signed up to the scheme.

It has launched a Wanted campaign to attract more older people to the programme. The campaign aims to showcase the broad mix of personality types and backgrounds among the volunteer group with a focus on nine existing volunteers.

Adopt a Grandparent founder Shaleeza Hasham said: “The response to our call for volunteers to adopt ‘grandparents’ was absolutely incredible and enormously heartwarming. Now though, we are seeing a shift where we have considerably more younger volunteers than we do grandparents. We’d love to help build more intergenerational friendships – so we’re putting out a call for interested older parties to sign up too.”

Younger people waiting to be partnered with a “grandparent” include actresses Ruby Rose and Jess Impiazzi, as well as a doctor, finance director, electrician, nurse and lawyer. The initiative aims to show that no matter your background, career, hobbies or interests, someone within the database will have the lived experience to match.

Rose formed a strong bond with care resident Iris in 2020 and is now looking for a new “grandparent”. She said: “I’ve always cared deeply about our older community. Early on in the pandemic, a friend of mine shared her experience with Adopt a Grandparent and I knew, instantly, that I had to reach out and help in any way I could. What I didn’t know at the time was how long the pandemic would last, how meaningful my weekly video calls with Iris, my adopted grandma, would become, and how healing the whole process would be.”