30% of young people report feeling lonely<\/a>\u00a0on a regular basis, volunteering with seniors is as much a balm for the spirit of the volunteer as it is for the senior. \u201cWhen I started volunteering, I thought I was just going to be listening to seniors. I didn\u2019t realize I\u2019d be sharing so much with them about my life,\u201d says M\u00e9lanie.<\/p>\nM\u00e9lanie was named volunteer of the year in 2016 because of her extraordinary capacity to discover and amplify the positive in everyone around her. In addition to visiting with residents, she also mentors new volunteers, welcoming them to Three Links and guiding them through the sometimes awkward first stages of meeting a senior and starting a conversation.<\/p>\n
Jeferson Silva used to be one of those unsure new volunteers. \u201cMelanie was great as a mentor,\u2019 he says. \u201cShe explained to me every single possible detail and the time flew in a very positive way. It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve felt such a good feeling of being able to help someone.\u201d<\/p>\n
M\u00e9lanie is currently in her last year of a Bachelor of Social Work at UBC. Her dream is to become a geriatric social worker, providing support to seniors and their families in long-term care. In addition to support, she hopes to bring attention to the fact that seniors are a vital part of our communities. \u201cSeniors are often underestimated. They have so much knowledge and we need to value that more. I\u2019ve discovered so many strengths in Kathleen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWe were just talking about how movie stars don\u2019t wear enough clothes,\u201d laughs Kathleen, a long-time resident of Three Links Care Centre, when I arrive to interview her and her volunteer visitor M\u00e9lanie Osorio-Mejia. Kathleen and M\u00e9lanie have become close friends over their three years of weekly visits. \u201cKathleen is so welcoming. She always gives…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.threelinks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.threelinks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.threelinks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.threelinks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.threelinks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.threelinks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.threelinks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.threelinks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.threelinks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.threelinks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}