Volunteers

Volunteer of the Year for 2009

Ian Comrie

Speech given by Volunteer Coordinator, Brigitte Gebauer July 6/09

Volunteers are the invaluable resource that makes Community Care and the work we do all over Haliburton County a reality. Our volunteers, 130 strong, helped over 1000 clients this year with an amazing 21000+ service hours... that is an average of over 150 hrs per volunteer. Wow!!

Our volunteers - help people reach their medical appointments, they help people get nutritious meals, they visit with people who have no one to share their lives with, they help organize and man our fundraising events, they help do jobs around the home and yard, they install Emergency Response Units and do quick phone checks to make sure people are alright. All of these things allow our seniors and our other clients to stay in their own homes for as long as possible. And our volunteers do all this with a smile and a genuine concern for the people they are serving.

Today we want to honour a special person whose volunteer work stood out to us this year!!

This person helped out in a number of ways throughout the year but what really stood out was his commitment to one project in particular - our new Agency Van. In fact, had it not been for Ian Comrie it is quite possible the Van would still be sitting in its storage unit and not being utilized, waiting for staff to find time to get it ready.

We didn't even need to ask Ian for help with the vehicle, as soon as he found out that we received the Van he came to us offering his time. And his help was indispensible. Ian's expertise with fleet vehicles came in extremely handy as he made suggestions and came up with ideas for the Agency Van that we would never have thought about.

Judy Cumming our Transportation coordinator says the "Ian was instrumental in getting the Agency Van on the road. The van became his "baby" and he looked after it with tender loving care. He made sure the Van was well equipped with everything it needed to make it safe and accessible for our seniors and the drivers."

Ian also played an integral part in the overall success of the 1st Annual Scotty Morrison Charity Hockey Tournament. Hilary Elia our Resource Development Coordinator says that Ian's "commitment to selling raffle tickets, guarding "Stanley" and sharing knowledge about Community Care speaks to the kindness of Ian and his ability to make those around him enthused about the cause." He is an absolute pleasure to be around and she will be calling on him many more times to support our fundraising activities.

We want to say a big thank you to Ian for all his efforts. It is an honour for us at Community Care to have a volunteer like Ian Comrie and we would like to celebrate his service to our community today with our Volunteer of the Year Award!!

More About Our Volunteers