The number of safe rides home Gimli Operation Red Nose volunteers gave this holiday season was down from last year, and the co-chair for the local campaign couldn’t be happier.
“It means we did our job!” said Dwayne Binns.
That’s because getting partiers home safely is only a part of what Red Nose does. It starts with putting up posters in the Gimli area promoting the service, and it continues with personal visits to local watering holes, hotels and party hosts encouraging them to make sure their patrons and guests have arranged a way to get home safely.
When one volunteer driver from the Gimli Rotary Club dropped in to a local pub to promote Operation Red Nose, a patron told her, “Oh, yeah, we have a safe ride planned” — and they gave her a $50 donation “just for being there.”
Minerva Tree Farms gave everyone a ride home from their staff party but still gave a donation to Red Nose.
“More and more people are planning their own safe rides home,” said Dave LeBlanc, the other co-chair of the campaign.
Binns said he often found older partiers had already arranged to have their adult children drive them home. “We would go to places where we knew holiday parties were happening and they would tell us, “Don’t worry, we already have a designated driver.”
And that is the point of Operation Red Nose, said Binns. “If we can help keep even one person off the road who might endanger themselves or others, then it’s a job well done.”
Even though rides were down to 90 this year from 103 last year, donations were up, with almost $5,000 raised from both riders and corporate sponsors.
Most of the money will go to the youth sports organizations in the Gimli area that sent teams of volunteers for the campaign, such as the Gimli Ski Club and Skate Interlake.
A big shout-out also goes to the volunteers from Access Credit Union, Brio Insurance/Interlake Real Estate, the RM of Gimli Volunteer Fire Department and the Gimli Rotary Club, which ran the event for their second year.
Thanks to the generous donations of vehicles and gas from Gimli’s three dealerships, Red Nose volunteers are able to drive patrons home in their own vehicles and then catch a ride back in the donated vehicles to Red Nose headquarters, which is in a conference room donated by Lakeview Gimli Resort. Prairie Communications donated two-way radios to help keep all the Red Nose teams co-ordinated.
“Local participation from sponsors was just great,” said LeBlanc. “In fact, we had so much food donated to fuel the volunteers, we had to turn some offers away.”
If you want to be part of the action next year, watch for the posters to go up next November and sign up!
