The City of Quesnel will start honouring community volunteers in a new way this year.
At the Feb. 25 council meeting, Coun. Laurey-Anne Roodenburg presented a report from the Executive Committee, which proposed a new way to recognize volunteers in the city.
“I know people have probably been waiting to see where we move forward with that since we’ve stopped using the Volunteer Citizen of the Year format,” said Roodenburg. “I formed a steering committee of various community members that were members of various organizations, sporting clubs, community at large, past winners of the Volunteer Citizen of the Year award, etc., and we came up with a game plan.”
Starting in 2020, the plan is that the City will host an annual recognition event that is group-oriented instead of individual recognition, like the past Volunteer Citizen of the Year awards.
Groups will be recognized for “milestone” anniversaries, such as five years of service to the community or 10 years, and these milestones will be honoured at a special invitation-only event. At this event, groups will have a chance to speak about what they do, and they will receive a certificate recognizing their milestone anniversary.
“We were talking about groups like our banks, there are banks within our banking organizations that do a lot of volunteer work, so this will allow us as a community recognize groups as a whole, not individuals, and I think that’s where we are trying to head so that we actually get out there into the community the sheer magnitude of volunteerism in our community,” said Roodenburg.
“This change recognizes groups instead of any one individual and will highlight their work in the community.”
Roodenburg says other considerations included creating a volunteer rolling reel display to have available for the Visitor Centre and City Hall to highlight the various organizations and volunteer opportunities in the community.
Roodenburg pointed out the City will need to establish an annual budget for this, and the event will require some staff support.
READ MORE: Louis Beaulieu named Volunteer Citizen of the Year