People showed up underneath the high level bridge for the Volunteer Lethbridge event for the 150 for 150 campaign. Photo by Garrett McGowan
Volunteer Lethbridge held an event to help celebrate Canada’s upcoming 150 birthday.
The celebratory event was co-planned by students in Media Production and Advertising (MPA) at Lethbridge College and was held on Nov. 26.
The community of Lethbridge was invited to the Helen Schuler Nature Centre for a set up photograph in front of the high level bridge.
They had hoped for 150 people to stand in the shape of a maple leaf to start off the 150 for 150 volunteer challenge.
“The event is a nation-wide campaign to applaud volunteering in Canada,” said Diana Sim, Executive Director at Volunteer Lethbridge.
“The volunteer centers around Canada are working together to help celebrate volunteerism. The volunteer center in Ottawa came up with the idea of encouraging people to volunteer 150 hours for the 150 birthday,” said Sim.
She says the students from the college liked the idea and they jumped on board.
They had hoped for 150 people in order for it to line up with the campaign name sake but they didn’t reach that marker.
Around 30 people showed up and even though they didn’t hit their target, Sim was happy with the community participation.
“It’s great to see people supporting Canada’s birthday; we thought we would try it, get those 150 people out and have a good launch,” said Sim.
Canada’s 150th birthday doesn’t happen till next year and she thinks that it had a factor with the turn out, she thinks next year people will be out in the community celebrating the big day.
This pre-birthday event was put on thanks to help from a small group of MPA students who helped design and put together a plan.
Adin Dingwall was a key contributor for the event and he says even though they didn’t get the number of people to the event that they wanted, it gave him valuable experience.
“One hundred and fifty is quite a big number, but we had a couple back up plans just in case this exact thing happened, I think the main message of the 150 for 150 campaign still worked,” said Dingwall.
Volunteer Lethbridge still has one more event in store before 2017.
International Volunteer Day falls on Dec. 5 and in relation to the day, Volunteer Lethbridge will be hosting its official launch of the 150 for 150 campaign along with the rest of Volunteer Canada.
