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Give your time, help Kelowna beat Ottawa

Kelowna on target for 150 volunteer challenge
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Mayor Colin Basran issued a challenge Feb. 1 for Kelowna residents to collectively give 150,000 volunteer hours in honour of Canada’s 150th birthday. As of Nov. 1, Kelowna volunteers have logged 135,059 hours on Volinspire.com.

The Canada 150 for 150 Volunteer Challenge is a nationwide initiative lead by Volunteer Ottawa in partnership with Volunteer Centres across the country. Initially, the goal was to encourage Canadians to give 150 hours of volunteer time in 2017 in celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary. However, every time you volunteer you can make a difference.

In the official challenge, Kelowna is in second place, just behind Ottawa.

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“Fortunately for us, Volinspire is a local company and they have made it possible for local non-profits to log volunteer hours for those individuals not online. This will give us a better picture of the impact of volunteerism in our community,” said Stephanie Moore Project Coordinator for KCR and the 150 Volunteer Challenge, in a press release.

Shout out at #WEareKelowna. We feel the love @craigkielburger. Thank You. #Volunteer #build #community #bethechange @wemovement

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KCR Community Resources, with the support of the Central Okanagan Foundation and a Community Foundations of Canada 150 Grant, has been promoting the challenge locally since late last year.

“It is really important to continue to inspire a culture of volunteerism in our community. We all have the same number of hours in each day. We all have something that we can contribute to make our community a great place to live, work and play,” said Moore.

The challenge continues right through until the end of the year and there will be plenty of opportunities to volunteer in the next couple of months. November is a particularly good month to consider giving back to your community. Nov. 5 was International Volunteer Managers Day. Nov. 28 is Giving Tuesday. And from now through December there will be many local non-profit organizations looking for help with their holiday events, fundraisers and Christmas hampers.

If you are looking for volunteer opportunities or want to log your volunteer hours for 2017, visit Volinspire.com or give KCR a call at 250-763-8008.