A Soup-er Luncheon for Super Volunteers

Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent

A 2022 Volunteer Appreciation Week Complimentary Soup-er Tuesday Lunch was offered at Senior Citizens Sunshine Club of Vegreville Centre (SCSCV) on April 26.

A total of 176 people were treated to soup, sandwiches, dessert and beverages by SCSCV members.

FCSS Community Programmer Elizabeth Koehler- Lenko said FCSS coordinated this event with SCSCV President Dwayne Hlady. “This event was a partnership between VALID, VegMin Learning, Sunshine Club, and Vegreville and District FCSS.”

The theme for Volunteer Week 2022 was ‘Volunteering is Empathy in Action’.

“We hosted this event because we wanted to honour the volunteers and show them appreciation for volunteering this year,” stated Koehler-Lenko.

She pointed out that, “Within the past year, Vegreville had 29,914 hours volunteered by over 350 volunteers. This only accounts for people who either reported their volunteering directly to us or organizations that reported their volunteer numbers. Many of the volunteers also volunteer for more than one organization.

We know that with the COVID-19 part, we have seen a little bit of downturn in volunteerism.

We asked those who attended the lunch how COVID affected their volunteering and 102 responded. The responses showed that 73 of the attendees volunteered less while 29 responded that they volunteered the same amount or more.

Volunteers are essential to the community as volunteers really keep our community going as they do everythingfrom Meals on Wheels and they help with Volunteer Income Tax which is just through FCSS. With every other organization, they really keep the town going. Without volunteers, we couldn’t run half the programs in town. At FCSS without our volunteers, we would need five times the staff then we do. Volunteers keep the community going without having to hire more people. If these 29,914 volunteer hours were to be paid at minimum wage, it would cost $448,710.”

SCSCV President Dwayne Hlady said the Sunshine Club wanted to help coordinate this event because seniors do a lot of volunteering. “Seniors also rely on volunteers. The volunteers have to know that we appreciate and need them. The world wouldn’t be able to run without volunteers. If people had to be paid for the work volunteers do, it would cost the community a lot of money.”