Hello, I'm Angela. I'm in Canada and you're currently listening to the BBC's Happy Pod.

Hello, I'm Oliver Conway, and in this edition,

We all need more connections in our lives.

I feel as if I've known that and she's all my life in my family.

She has such positive energy, she just brightens our week.

A transatlantic friendship across the generations, celebrating nature in Alaska.

Success for bears is getting fat and you vote for your favorite fattest bear.

Also wacky cars, how a running club helped change lives around the world, and...

A record-breaking Harker, all in the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.

After last week's podcast all about young people changing the world, we start this edition with a story of friendship spanning the generations and the Atlantic Ocean.

Despite living more than 5,500

1,500 kilometers apart, Angela Martin and her family in Ontario, Canada,

and Anne Lucas, an 83-year-old who lives in a care home in England,

have built a close bond after being introduced in July.

It's part of a project to tackle loneliness and give young people a chance to learn from

their elders.

The charity, Adopt a Grandparent, was established five years ago here in the UK.

But after going virtual during the pandemic, it now has more than 100, thousand volunteers around the world.

Angela and Anne have been chatting to the happy pods, Abiona Boyer.

I was just looking for a new place for our family to volunteer and I found the Adopt a Grandparent

website. They had a statistic on there that 200,000 older people haven't spoken to

a friend or family member in over a month.

...