Lac La Biche KidSport looking for more volunteers

Volunteers play a pivotal role in the organization, helping with fundraising, organizing events, and also sit as board members.

LAC LA BICHE - The Lac La Biche chapter of KidSport is looking for more volunteers to join its ranks. The nonprofit organization provides grants to help cover the costs of registration fees for children in the Lac La Biche area so that they can play organized sports. According to Dave Phillips, the fundraising coordinator for KidSport, volunteers lend a hand with different functions, including fundraising barbecues and pancake breakfasts, bottle drives, and also serve on the board of the organization.

“We need enough of a group so that we can call on everybody and we have enough showing up so we don’t have to worry about things at the last minute,” Phillips told Lakeland This Week. Currently, while KidSport has 15-16 volunteers from the community, Phillips does a lot of the work himself. “I’m a retired guy, so I have the time to do the stuff that some of the other ones who are still working cannot,” he said.

Phillips oversees a group of volunteers who assist with going around and collecting bottles as part of fundraising efforts for KidSport. “That group of guys is much reduced as they get older and no longer able to do it,” he added. Becoming a volunteer with KidSport is a straightforward process, though one that does require a certain time commitment on the part of those who sign up.

New volunteers get on the organization’s email list where they receive updates and news regarding fundraising activities and other events. If folks are available to help out, they let the executive know. “You have to be interested and involved, and really wanting to help kids out,” he stated.

The pancake breakfasts that the organization puts on during Lac La Biche Pow Wow Days and the Festival of Trees, according to Phillips, are a great way of promoting KidSport and attracting interest in the organization. “Those two primarily are to get more exposure for the group, and what we’re doing, and how people can access the funds that we give out,” he explained. Although the interest is there in the community to sign up and volunteer, Phillips went on, many people cannot make the time commitment.

“We have people that want to help, but they have young children and so, the time they have is very limited,” he said. “That’s just how it goes.” KidSport helps anywhere from 53 to 80 local youngsters annually, providing them with grants so that they can play sports such as hockey, soccer, and boxing.

The organization pays the money directly to the respective sporting organizations. There is a ceiling as to how much money can be distributed. “We’ll help a single child out for $500 in a year,” Phillips stated.

Phillips initially become involved with KidSport during the term he spent as a Lac La Biche County councillor. Volunteering with the organization is something he has become very passionate about. “It’s a lot of work, but I love it.

I put in personally probably 30 hours a month, and I don’t want it any other way,” he said. “It’s a great organization, and we do have provincial support in Lac La Biche.”