How does the Telephone Reassurance Service offer help to people in need? [origin

W: Just a few years ago this city established what is called the Telephone Reassurance Service. It was set up by a volunteer group of people to ring up elderly or handicapped persons who live alone, to see whether they are all right and to help cheer them up.
M: That sounds like a good idea. Has the service been going for a few years?
W: I think it’s five, but it might even be ten years, and now it has about one thousand volunteers and they keep in daily touch with more than twelve hundred people, mostly senior citizens.
M: It must be frightening to be old and alone and have no one who has any interest in you.
W: The service made its millionth call recently. The volunteer calls once a day and if no one answers, another call is made in about an hour. If there is still no answer, a call is placed to a neighbor or to someone who can go to see if the person is all right. The project is supported twenty percent by federal funds and the rest by donations. The volunteers now go through an instruction course before beginning the calls.