LONDON—ImLive.com is donating free one-on-one sessions to new users currently living in senior living facilities to help make their stays during the pandemic less lonely. Visitors to most facilities have been banned or highly restricted, leaving some residents trapped in their rooms with no one to speak to. Through ImLive, senior users can use these sessions to connect with hosts for simple companionship and conversation. The hosts will be paid directly by ImLive and the sessions will include site enhancements such as larger fonts and icons designed to create a more enjoyable senior user experience.
This offer originated as a request from an ImLive member who can no longer visit their grandparent living in a nursing home, as part of the ImLive “18th Birthday Wish-a-Thon" campaign. The member wrote, "I’m multiple time zones away from my grandfather who lives in a nursing home. He isn’t allowed to have any visitors and I want him to have a friend to talk to.”
This wish is one of 18 that ImLive will select as part of its birthday celebration. The campaign has seen thousands of submissions already across the ImLive website and on social media, and will be accepting wishes until August 2.
“The elderly community has been affected greatly throughout the pandemic, especially those in senior living facilities and nursing homes, where in most cases they haven’t had visitors regularly for months. This is an opportunity to introduce some of those seniors to a few new friends,” said Adrian Stoneman, VP of ImLive. “A lot of people can relate to the feeling of not being able to do much for the elderly relatives or seniors in their lives because they physically cannot be with them due to visiting restrictions at these facilities. Through these free sessions, those seniors can utilize our ImLive hosts for companionship along with the added features designed to make navigating the site as seamless as possible.”
Nursing facilities interested in offering this free service to their elderly residents should email their request to [email protected]. After verifying the facility, ImLive will send links and schedules for the free sessions to the interested residents. No credit card or personal information will be required from these users, as ImLive will pay its hosts for the sessions directly as part of the giveaway.
ImLive has been in the news recently with the launch of several new campaigns. In July, ImLive launched ImLive4TheBlind, a service for blind and vision impaired users utilizing sports announcers to commentate on the action. ImLive found veteran MMA and soccer announcer Sean Wheelock and others to use their skills. Earlier in the summer, the company brought on leading adult entertainer Riley Reid to provide tips and demonstrations after the company released survey findings in May that revealed a decline in sexual activity among couples that quarantined together. In April, the company launched an anti-dating campaign in collaboration with celebrities to condemn coronavirus-spreading courtship. As part of that campaign, the company offered to give away up to $50M in credits for people to use on its site.
