HEALTH and wellbeing, loneliness and benefits are just a sample of the issues that are addressed by Age UK Blackburn with Darwen.

Now the charity is among the finalists in the Social Responsibility Commitment to Blackburn with Darwen.

But what many people do not know is that local branches of Age UK are all independent, mainly raising their own funds, in the way any charity would do.

Business development manager Elaine Jennings said: “We are a brand partner of Age UK, but are quite separate and independent, and with limited funding from the national charity.”

Despite the perennial challenge of raising funds, Age UK Blackburn with Darwen provides a huge range of services to help make life easier for older people.

These include making contact with 130 housebound or isolated elderly people every week through a network of volunteers, running 24 ‘ageing well’ activities and providing 200 day care places each week for those who might, for instance, be living with dementia.

Elaine, who has worked with the charity for 25 years, said: “We provide free advice and last year alone helped people to claim an additional £1.6m in benefits, some of which they weren’t aware they were entitled to.”

While the charity employs 52 full and part-time staff in the borough, there is also an army of 137 volunteers who between them, last year, gave 16,799 hours of their time to support older people in the community.