To celebrate the country's 150th anniversary as only Canadians could, people are taking up the Volunteer 150 Challenge.
Every Canadian is asked to keep track of their volunteering hours to a total of 150 hours. That might seem a lot but it works out to be 2.8 hours a week.
It's not only formal volunteering for a non-profit that Volunteer PG wants residents to document.
"I don't think people think of what they're doing as volunteering," said Sarah Foot, general manager for Volunteer PG. "It could be shoveling snow off the driveway for a neighbour, running errands for a sick friend - we're doing all those kinds of things, we're just not calling it volunteering."
This project will help shift the thinking of community members to see how much they really are doing, she added.
"And hopefully encourage them to track it because when we are able to show what is collectively happening across Canada it's pretty astounding what volunteers are able to do," said Foot. "My personal thought is that everyone is a volunteer, they just don't know it yet."
There are incentives offered when people enter the challenge as there is funding provided to the project from the Community Fund for Canada's 150th, which is a partnership between the Prince George Community Foundation, the government of Canada and the City of Prince George.
"So that will allow us to celebrate the folks that join the challenge," said Foot.
National Volunteer Week takes place the last week of April and Foot said she'll have some giveaways during that time to people who have signed up for the challenge - they don't even need to have logged in any hours, just sign up and participants will be eligible to win prizes.
When people attend events like Canada Day at the Park, Volunteer PG will be there offering giveaways, too.
There will be other prize draws on other special occasions like International Volunteer Manager Day in November and a celebration to honour volunteers on International Volunteer Day on Dec. 5.
Foot knows that not everyone is comfortable with online data entry so there will be opportunities for Volunteer PG staff to attend at different community groups to hold information sessions to help get everyone started at their locations and help with logging hours into the system, which is user friendly.
Volunteer PG put in a proposal to city council last week that Prince George take up the friendly competition against Kelowna, which is seeking to achieve 150,000 hours of volunteer time, that means 1,000 people with 150 hours of volunteer time.
"Volunteer PG is hoping mayor and council will take up that challenge as we are The Volunteer City," said Foot. She said she should find out in April if the City of Prince George accepts the challenge from Kelowna.
-- HINZMANN, Citizen staff
