Rochester & the Finger Lakes

Everyone deserves someone.

Right now, thousands of our neighbors go days without a real conversation. For $25 a month, you can send a trained friend to the porch, the phone or the park, free for the person who needs one.

Give $25 a month I would like a companion

Photo: composite illustration of a Front Porch Visit. Companion Care is friendship, not home healthcare.

  • 88¢ of every dollargoes straight to programs
  • 501(c)(3) public charityTax-deductible · EIN 00-0000000
  • Platinum Seal of TransparencyCandid
  • Four-star ratingCharity Navigator

Demo site: EIN, ratings and program percentage are illustrative placeholders.

Winter Match · live

Double your gift for a lonely neighbor this winter.

A group of Rochester families will match every gift 1:1 until the match fund is gone. Your $25 becomes $50 of company.

Give and be matched

Winter Match

$18,400 matched of $25,000

$6,600left to double your gift
2,143neighbors have given

Marcus T. of Rochester gave $50 monthly

The quiet emergency

Loneliness is not a feeling. It is a health risk, and it is happening on our streets.

The U.S. Surgeon General has called loneliness an epidemic: about half of American adults report it, and lacking connection carries a risk to health comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

Here at home, it looks like a grandmother on Joseph Avenue who has not had a visitor since October. A Deaf man in Brighton whose friends moved away. A Somali-American teen new to her school. A young man with Down syndrome whose weekends are empty. It does not care how old you are.

How we work

A volunteer in a winter coat holds hands with a Congolese woman in her sixties at her snowy front door in Rochester
A winter Front Porch Visit. Illustrative image.

Connection, counted.

1,200
visits and outings completed this year
85%
of neighbors feel less lonely after 3 months
120
volunteers background-checked and trained
$0
cost to every neighbor we serve

Sample data for this prototype. Real figures (UCLA 3-item loneliness scale) will replace these before launch.

Meet Rosa and Imani
Imani, a young Black woman, laughs with Rosa, an elderly Latino man, on a wooden porch in autumn

“He taught me to play dominoes. I taught him to video call his sister in Ponce.”

Rosendo Vega is 79 and has lived on the same street in the Marketview Heights neighborhood for 41 years. After his wife passed and his knees slowed him down, his front porch went quiet. Imani, a 24-year-old nursing student at Monroe Community College and a Companion Care volunteer, comes by on Thursdays after class.

They do not talk about medicine. They talk about baseball, about Puerto Rico, about the lilacs at Highland Park. Rosendo calls it “the best part of my week.” Imani says she is not sure who is helping whom.

Composite story based on the experiences of our companions. Names and details changed. Image is illustrative.

Fund a Thursday like this More stories
How we connect people

Six ways to belong. All free to the people we serve.

An elderly Black man and a young Burmese man play chess at a kitchen table

Front Porch Visits

A weekly visit from the same trained friend. Coffee, cards, stories.

Learn more
An elderly Black woman smiling on the phone in her kitchen

Hello Calls

Phone and video check-ins for people who cannot get out, or simply love to talk.

Learn more
Older adults laughing beside an accessible van at a park

Out & About

Accessible rides and outings: the library, the Public Market, a ballgame.

Learn more
Neighbors sharing a community dinner

Common Table

Monthly neighborhood dinners and coffee hours where everyone has a seat.

Learn more
Two Deaf friends signing American Sign Language at a cafe

Hands & Voices

ASL-fluent and Deaf companions for Rochester’s Deaf and hard-of-hearing community.

Learn more
A Bhutanese-Nepali family welcomed at their apartment door by a volunteer

Bridge Buddies

Friendships for newcomers, refugees and neighbors across ages and abilities.

Learn more
Companion Care is not home healthcare. Our companions do not provide medical, nursing, personal care or medication help. If you need those services we will gladly connect you with 211, Lifespan of Greater Rochester or Eldersource.
Become a monthly companion

Monthly gifts keep a friend coming back.

Loneliness does not end after one visit. Monthly donors let us promise a neighbor, “we will be there next week, and the week after.”

$10a background check for a new volunteer $15two weeks of phone check-ins $25a month of weekly visits $50trains a new volunteer $100an accessible outing for six

Per month. All gifts matched 1:1 during Winter Match. Prefer to give once?

Volunteer

Two to four hours a month can change someone’s year.

No experience needed. We train you, match you and stay by your side. Languages welcome: ASL, Spanish, Nepali, Arabic, Swahili, Burmese and more.

Become a companion
Need a friend?

Ask for a companion. It is free.

For yourself, a parent, a neighbor or a client. A real person will call you back within two business days.

Request a companion
Other ways to give

Honor someone, give stock, or leave a legacy.

Tribute gifts, donor-advised funds, IRA rollovers, workplace matching and bequests.

Ways to give