Panketal celebrates its first chat bench: a meeting place for everyone!

Panketal celebrates its first chat bench: a meeting place for everyone!

On June 23, 2025, a very special project was launched in Panketal: the first chat bench. This new facility, about which barnim-aktuell.de reports, is intended to bring people of all ages, origins and gender into conversation with each other. Mayor Maximilian Wonke and Petra Krummel, chairwoman of the senior citizens' advisory board, provided the celebratory setting for the inauguration in Goethepark. “Loneliness in old age is an issue that affects many, and this is where we come in,” Wonke said at the ceremony.

The innovative chat bench is more than just a place to sit. It is characterized by a sign that explains how to use the bench and encourages people to simply sit down and start a conversation. The creative touch was contributed by 9th grade students from the Wilhelm-Conrad-Röntgen-Gesamtschule in Zepernick, who designed lettering on the benches. Noah and Benjamin, who were present at the inauguration, also actively worked on the project.

A step against loneliness

The origins of the idea go back to the senior citizens' advisory board, which suggested to the mayor that he start a simple, cross-generational project with the Plauderbank. The relevance of this initiative is underlined from various quarters. Around million people in Germany, like bmfsfj.de explained, feel lonely - a condition that affects all age groups and life situations. Older women in particular are often affected by loneliness, and younger people also often feel isolated.

In Panketal, the goal is to encourage even more people to communicate with each other with five more chatting benches that will be set up in the next few weeks. The locations have been carefully selected, including at the mouth of the Dranse and near the cemeteries, so that the initiative has a widespread impact.

Success stories and future prospects

The Plauderbank pioneering work in Panketal is part of a large number of similar projects in Germany and beyond. For example, special bench designs were introduced in Berlin that are intended to make chatting easier for people with particularly limited mobility, reports seniorenpolitik-aktuell.de. These benches are deliberately not clearly marked in order to encourage natural contact. Nevertheless, there are also critical voices who fear that such institutions could potentially exclude certain groups of people.

Overall, the development of chat benches shows nationwide efforts to combat loneliness in society. Federal Ministry projects, such as the ESF Plus program “Strengthening the Participation of Older People”, support numerous initiatives that are intended to benefit people over 60 years of age. The diversity of measures is an answer to an urgent social problem that is gaining more and more attention.

The Plauderbank in Panketal could be the beginning of a larger movement that promotes togetherness and strengthens social exchange between generations. It will therefore be exciting to see how the project is received in the community and beyond and what further steps are taken to reduce loneliness.”>