Exeter

What?

In 2019-20 - the latest data available - we responded to 36,976 contacts within the branch. Of these 27,162 were telephone calls, 4,791 were emails and 5,023 were text messages. We're also piloting a web chat service, too.

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Who?

We have over 120 volunteers in our branch; in addition to responding to callers, we would normally conduct outreach work across our area, such as offering wellbeing talks to school students and holding fundraising collections at supermarkets. We have just resumed working with Listeners in Exeter Prison.

Prior to the pandemic, we would invite anyone wishing to volunteer with our branch to an information evening, lasting 90 minutes and a fantastic opportunity to ask questions, meet Samaritans and find out about our work.

That's not possible right now but we hope to resume these soon - check back for more details. In the meantime, feel free to email us on [email protected] and follow us on Twitter @ExeSamaritans.

You can also contact our director Mel on [email protected]

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Headlines

Occasionally we make the news - in a good way. Please read these to get a flavour about why:

Jenny and Milly keep volunteering in the family way

Bin there, Done that - The story behind a mistaken charity shop donation

Making Waves - an underwater photographer works with Samaritans

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History

Exeter Samaritans held its first meeting to recruit volunteers in November 1963 - we were one of the first out-of-London branches, set up 10 years after the national charity was founded by the Reverend Chad Varah.

Exeter Samaritans’ telephone number ‘went live’ in 1964 and by 1970 there were 1,800 annual ‘contacts’ from people by telephone or face-to-face. This rose to 6,865 by 1975.

The local branch increased in geographical size to cover parts of Devon as well as Exeter, larger premises were used and at different times we had a city centre charity shop - and our own caravan!

In 1992 a Listeners team was created in Exeter Prison; prisoners were trained by Samaritans to support their peers and this remains a vital part of our work today.

In 1999 we moved to our current central Exeter premises, and now we respond to callers by email as well as the original telephone and face-to-face.

Late in 2020 we opened a pop-up shop in Sidmouth, inside our 'patch'. It's open five days a week, Tuesday to Saturday, and run entirely by volunteers.

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Our privacy statement

At Samaritans, privacy is at the heart of what we do. We are committed to protecting your privacy and the personal information that we hold. Read our privacy statement here.