Could history have been made at this year’s New Westminster Festival of Volunteers? Pretty unlikely, but only time will tell.
Hundreds of people attended the annual volunteer fair at Royal City Centre on Saturday, where they connected with more than 30 organizations that are on the hunt for volunteers.
“I think it went really well,” said Stacy Ashton, executive director of Community Volunteer Connections. “It was super busy.”
One of the organizations attending the fair reported getting four pages of names of potential volunteers.
“The consensus was it was very, very busy, very steady, lots of people interested,”Ashton said. “A lot of people said what was cool was the diversity of the tables. There was so many different kinds of volunteering, so many different sizes of organization, so many really local organizations.”
Along with checking out volunteer activities, fair goers also had a chance to enjoy a full day of local entertainment. Mayor Jonathan Cote also squared off against Governor James Douglas (aka, Dennis Burich of the Royal Engineers Living History Group) in a debate about the province’s capital - and returning it to New Westminster.
“Jonathan was awesome. He had the museum director brief him - he had all this ammo,” Ashton said. “They were really into it. They had their arguments and their counter arguments. In the end, we did the winner by applause.”
Cote’s position was that New Westminster should once again be the capital of British Columbia. When he won the event, MLA Judy Darcy agreed to take the motion forward to the Legislature.
“I don’t know if she will, but that would be awesome if she did,” Ashton laughed. “It would be totally fine for her to do that – she does represent us. Clearly, it’s the will of the people. We could be changing history.”
On a more serious note, the fair provided an opportunity for people to check out a variety of different volunteer opportunities in one place.
“Our goal is to get as many people out volunteering as we can,” Ashton said. “We often hear stories back a year or two after our festival saying ‘I met the organization I’m volunteering for here,’” Ashton said. “It’s a real opportunity to talk about what yours skills are and what organizations need in a more informal, conversational way.”
