A recent report from Alberta Health Services indicates that there’s been a significant drop in the number of people stepping up to donate their time to help others.
The study says there has been a decline in the numbers of volunteers over the past four years in several regions of the province.
Some agencies attribute the losses to the economic downturn, because it’s tough to get people to spend their time on helping out others rather than looking for a paying job.
Volunteers are an important resource for many Calgarians, including seniors who no longer have the means to access appointments and other services in the city.
Joy Harvey says volunteers who help at her living facility do a lot to cut down on the time it takes with other city-run services.
“When they pick you up, you could be waiting for half an hour to an hour,” she says. “After going to the doctor, I was on the south side and I was in so much pain. I thought there has to be a better system.”
Roy Ponte works with Harvey and his other fellow seniors, using his driving skills to help give them rides to where they need to go.
“You got to do something with your life, so enjoy it. I tell people who volunteer, if you don’t like it, don’t do it, go do something else but I’ve been doing it for 18 years.”
Harvey says it’s also important to have a familiar face helping out on a consistent basis.
“Today, I had a volunteer that took me to the eye clinic and he picked me up and took me home. This is absolutely fantastic and I enjoy seeing this gentleman.”
Ponte says the best thing about volunteering is meeting people and over his career volunteering, he’s met thousands of people.
“I enjoy it. There’s going to be a time when I need a ride, so it’s payback time.”
Some organizations say they aren’t having that much trouble finding hands to help out. Stephanie Sacks, chairperson with Na’amat School Supplies for Kids program, says they have a lot of people that come back year after year.
“We have a lot of members and family and people from our community who have been coming for 21 years.”
She says that there have been times where they’ve even had to consider cutting off the amount of people coming out to help.
“Having too few volunteers is a problem but having too many is a problem too because no one wants to come and just stand around.”
According to Statistics Canada, Alberta is about in the middle compared to other provinces in the number of hours spent volunteering.
(With files from Chris Epp)
