When the Ontario Winter Games wrapped up in Orillia in 2018, Julia Nicholls felt like she had missed out on a great opportunity.
“After 2018, I said, ‘I should have got involved,’” she said.
The sense of excitement and community was everywhere during those games, and that has not changed this year, as Orillia is again hosting thousands of the province’s young athletes.
When Nicholls heard the games were returning, she made sure to sign up as a volunteer.
“I want to support youth,” said Nicholls, who volunteered with Girl Guides for years. “I’m retired, so I have a bit of time.”
Her volunteer duties this weekend have taken her to Casino Rama, Couchiching Beach Park and the Best Western Couchiching Inn, where she assisted guests. She’s loved every minute of it.
“The energy has been great and there are a lot of volunteers,” she said. “It’s not hard work being a volunteer, but it’s hard work being an organizer. They put their heart and soul into it.”
That has certainly been the case for the games organizing committee, including Gill Tillmann and Mary O’Farrell-Bowers, co-chairs of the volunteer committee. The two have had the monumental task of looking after hundreds of helpers.
However, they are quick to deflect the praise back to the volunteers.
“They’ve been great,” Tillmann said. “They’re flexible and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to help people out.”
Flexibility is a bonus, especially this year, when there are fewer volunteers.
The 2018 games brought out about 800 volunteers. While a similar amount signed up this year, there have been between 400 and 500 active volunteers. While the weather played a small part in that, there are other factors. For the 2020 games, volunteers were able to sign up a year ago using an online scheduling system.
“Due to a number of circumstances, some people were not able to volunteer. Life happens,” O’Farrell-Bowers said, but added, “We did get the volunteers that we needed.”
“They’ve really enjoyed it,” she continued. “They’re energized. They love watching the athletes and love being ambassadors for their community.”
“The volunteers are really dedicated and they want to do whatever they can,” Tillmann added. “The one complaint is that they wanted to do more.”
Using a scheduling system — which wasn’t available in 2018 — has allowed volunteers to pick and choose what they want to do. It worked out well for Glenn Metheral and Daveen Morrison, sport managers for curling.
Both are curlers and both volunteered during the 2018 games at the Barnfield Point Recreation Centre.
“We thought we could offer a better experience (in 2020) for young curlers,” Metheral said. “We designed our activities with that in mind.”
One way to enhance the experience, he said, can be seen on Sunday. When the athletes take to the ice for the medal games, they will be led in by a bagpiper, who will then offer a ginger ale toast to the young curlers.
“The highlight, for me, has been the ability to do something special for the kids,” Metheral said.
That has been a highlight for Morrison, too, as well as “meeting new people and meeting more of the curling community.”
For many of the games’ volunteers, it’s a sacrifice to give their time. That was the case with Clifford Perry, but he said it was worth it. He saw the banners downtown promoting the games, went online to see what they were all about and then booked a week off work so he could volunteer.
“I wanted to do stuff I hadn’t done before,” said Perry, who has been serving as an “errand boy” during the games. “I’m enjoying it all. I’m meeting lots of people. I love being a part of such a big event with so many volunteers. It’s so rewarding that it’s almost a selfish act. I’m getting a lot out of it, personally.”
While the majority of the volunteers are from the area, some have come from Toronto. What shocked Tillmann was when she heard from a man from Chile who wanted to volunteer. He was going to be in Toronto to learn English and was looking for volunteer opportunities while in Ontario. He’ll be flying back to South America on Sunday morning, and it’s another volunteer from Toronto who has offered to take him to the airport.
“That’s what our volunteers do,” Tillmann said.
That generous volunteer is Vicki Hand, who, in an email to Tillmann, said, “The karate athletes were among some of the most polite and well-behaved individuals (that includes adults) I’ve had the pleasure to ‘work with’ in the past few years. What a delight. The skin hues were every shade of the Canadian rainbow with Sikh turbans to Russian accents to Asian to Middle Eastern to just plain who-knows-their-ancestry folks.”
Working with the young athletes was Anne Kungla’s favourite part of volunteering. She was looking after the target shooters at the Rama MASK.
“Being new not only to this area but, perhaps, to this (competition), a lot of kids are far from home. We’re here to make them comfortable,” she said. “It’s a community service. Kids do it a lot these days and adults should, too.”
The adults stationed at games organizing committee headquarters, the Orillia Waterfront Centre, have been operating a well-oiled machine. If a volunteer at a venue cannot answer a question, the query is sent to HQ, where someone will find an answer. As of late Saturday afternoon, HQ had fielded more than 100 inquiries and answered all of them.
O’Farrell-Bowers thanked all of the volunteers, including the organizing committee, for their dedication.
“All members of the games organizing committee leading different committees have worked incredibly hard, have given a great commitment of time, have been challenged by various factors and have all come together to make this happen,” she said. “It’s that old adage that it takes a village, and it does take a village to put on these games.”
