Award program salutes seniors for volunteering.
Louise Quinn has been volunteering at the Kanata Food Cupboard since 2006 with her husband Tom. Home Instead Senior Care is sponsoring the 2013 Salute to Senior Service award program, which honours adults 65 years and older, like Quinn, who volunteer 15 or more hours a month with a non-profit group.
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A local senior care organization is looking to recognize older adults who have volunteered their time this year to charities.
Home Instead Senior Care, based in Kanata and serving the Ottawa-area, is sponsoring the 2013 Salute to Senior Service award program, which honours adults 65 years and older who volunteered 15 or more hours a month to a non-profit.
“So many organizations rely on seniors,” said Lesley Sullivan, owner of the Home Instead Senior Care office located in Kanata. “We want to honour them and recognize them.”
Older adults are more likely than other age groups to volunteer 170 hours or more annually, according to the 2007 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating.
“These volunteers account for 78 per cent of all volunteer hours annually – yet too often these selfless individuals remain unnoticed,” said Sullivan.
People can nominate themselves or others and the submission period is open until March 31, with online voting taking place from April 15 to 30. The winners will be announced in May.
“It is a national program; there will be a provincial winner chosen and a national winner chosen as well,” said Sullivan.
The provincial winners will be determined by online votes and a panel of judges will select the top national volunteer.
Home Instead will host a local event to honour any nominees that come from the Ottawa area.
“I’m hoping that we’re going to have the provincial winner,” Sullivan said.
Home Instead is working on contacting the many organizations in the city that rely on volunteers to let them know they can also put forth nominations.
Meals on Wheels, one of the non-profits Home Instead contacted, helps provide food to people who are unable to shop for themselves.
“Volunteers make it happen at Meals on Wheels; without their contribution, we would never be able to get the food to the clients,” said Baudouin St-Cyr, executive director of the not-for-profit, in an email. “Volunteers deliver the food into the clients’ hands day in, day out, no matter the weather conditions. They provide the nutrition and the caring contact. Without their contribution, Meals on Wheels could not exist.”
For more information or to nominate a volunteer, visit SalutetoSeniorService.ca or mail a nomination form to Salute to Senior Service, P.O. Box 444, Toronto F, Toronto ON, M4Y 2L8.