A charity that works to make sure there's always someone there for anyone who needs support is celebrating 70 years.
Samaritans Bolton based on Bark Street is joining other branches up and down the country in celebrating the anniversary.
As part of their celebrations, the Bolton branch are donating two park benches within Bolton with the locations to be decided.
June Taylor, Deputy Director at Samaritans Bolton who supports volunteers said the charity helps people across Bolton in many ways.
She said: “Our main role at the moment in Bolton is outreach and we deal with partnership agencies including the Royal Bolton Hospital, the police and probation who refer people.
“Our role with those organisations is if they have a patient or somebody in custody or some on probation who they think would benefit from a call and they agree, we give them a phone call to offer them emotional support.
“We also have links with the accident and emergency where people present with their mental health, we link with them and offer calls through them.
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“We also do outreach across Bolton so if there is a serious incident such as a suicide we would go down on the day and a few more days after the incident to talk to people who may have witnessed it.
“Not only do we support through referrals and outreach we also do community days to offer support and we also go out to schools.
“Some people think we just offer support for suicide, but we actually also offer support before they get to the stage where they don’t see another outcome.”
June said they have taken an influx of emails and calls in the last twelve months and said the service is vital.
She said: “We have been offering the Samaritans service in Bolton for around 52 years, quite a long time and we have a charity shop too in Breightmet.
“I think the service is vital, it is confidential, and people can ring up and get anybody in the country, they don’t know where you are ringing from so it is totally confidential, and it is safe to speak.
“People will never ever be judged ever.”
In the last 70 years, Samaritans branches across the country have answered more than 134 million calls for help.
Every 10 seconds volunteers respond to a call for help.
How people can access Samaritans support:
Support is available to people 24 hours a day, seven days a week over the phone.
If you need to talk to someone, call 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org.
To find out more information go to https://www.samaritans.org/branches/bolton/
If you would like to become a volunteer:
To train to become a volunteer, training happens three times a year and people can go online to place an interest.
People will then be interviewed and if successful they will be offered training.
Once training is complete people will become trainee volunteers and will go into the hub taking calls before becoming an official volunteer.
For more information go to: https://www.samaritans.org/support-us/volunteer/
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