Alumni Spotlight

Kepes is CEO and co-founder of the charitable organization that connects seniors with volunteers through regular, virtual one-on-one conversations. It’s an effort to reduce loneliness and social isolation in seniors’ communities and stimulate intergenerational learning. And its origins have a personal resonance.

“During the government-ordered lockdowns, there was a lot of media attention about seniors in homes and residences separated from their families,” Kepes recalls. “My grandparents’ care facility was the site of one of the early major COVID-19 outbreaks, and they both contracted it.”

While Kepes’ grandmother lived through it, sadly his grandfather died from COVID-related causes. His wife’s grandmother also passed away after having lived with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. He came to understand the science that indicates how nine months of isolation contributed to her decline. 

Even the World Health Organization has declared loneliness a global public health threat. And Kepes decided to do something about it.  

“After my grandfather passed away, I, my wife, and a friend of ours asked the operators of the home where he’d lived how they would feel about us FaceTiming with the residents, just to keep them company,” he says. “They couldn’t see their families, and we were just sitting at home.” 

The care facility was receptive and the initiative continued for six months. Kepes got UCC involved, working with fellow ’07 grad and UCC teacher D.J. Rossi on delivering holiday cards made by Year 5 students to residents at a home nearby.    

Things really took off when Kepes connected with Dr. Franco Taverna, a University of Toronto professor specializing in neuroscience, health and disease. 

Taverna’s students were learning about aging and dementia through volunteerism in retirement residences and hospitals, but that stopped with the pandemic. Kepes reached out and suggested his virtual interactions could work for Taverna’s purposes, and they piloted the program with a fourth-year undergrad class. 

When it proved a success, Kepes and Taverna officially partnered up and launched CompanionLink in summer 2021. It now has additional chapters in B.C. — taking advantage of a volunteer pool at Simon Fraser University (SFU) — and in Kingston, enlisting students from Queen’s University, Kepes’ alma mater. Having matched more than 150 seniors, CompanionLink is looking to start in a couple more locations in the new year. 

Not all volunteers are students. In fact, some are seniors themselves. In all cases, volunteers are vetted and trained before they’re matched one-on-one with a senior at a participating retirement residence or hospital.    

Working with grant funding, CompanionLink and SFU are studying how matching seniors and volunteers with a shared identity connection affects the experience. This year the focus is on the outcome of matching individuals who both identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community. 

The seniors aren’t the only ones who benefit. “We’ve heard from many female volunteers matched with women seniors that they get a lot out of comparing the experiences of being a young woman today versus, say, 50 years ago,” Kepes notes.  

While the importance of companionship to our wellbeing might seem self-evident, Kepes can cite results from scientific studies to back that up, one being that a 65-year-old with a healthy social life can expect to live three to five years longer than one who is socially isolated. 

CompanionLink’s key offering is a weekly one-hour call (at minimum), but it’s not limited to that. In-person visits are welcome, as are special events. “We give a budget to our student chapters that allows them to independently put on events, such as a theatre program or band performance,” Kepes explains. 

He adds that his UCC experience ties directly into his mission at CompanionLink. 

“The confidence and desire to create change goes back to a lot of my formative education at the school.”