Riding along with Operation Red Nose in Kamloops

About half an hour into another Saturday night at Operation Red Nose, the phones have just started to ring.

Teams of three volunteers have already gone out on their first trips of the night. The dispatch volunteers make calls, directing those teams to their following rides.

“I started in 1999,” Cheryl Morphy tells CFJC Today.

For long-time volunteers like Morphy, it’s almost automatic.

“[Morphy’s husband] Daryl’s grandfather started the first year, and he was (driving) every single night,” Morphy recalls. “We decided that we would step in so he didn’t have to, and once you start – it just becomes this little community of volunteers. You get together every year, you look forward to seeing them, and it just makes the holidays nice.”

Cheryl’s husband Daryl is a seasoned volunteer driver, who’s filled all three positions on the Red Nose Crews, over his decades of service to the organization.

“I really don’t know what keeps us coming back. I just like doing it,” Daryl explains. “It’s just something I got into long ago, and I just haven’t really let it go. We get a lot of people home safe. That’s really the key about it.”

Daryl has – unintentionally – become the face of Operation Red Nose over the years. When volunteering several years ago, he sat down at Frick and Frack and pretended to be a client so a TV crew could get some video of a pick-up. Each holiday season, the stopwatch on his fifteen minutes of fame gets reset.

“I usually get the texts and the messages of ‘hey, I just saw you on TV’, so I know when the Red Nose campaign is kicking off,” he explains. “Hopefully this year maybe you’ll get some new edits and we’ll get someone else famous for a while.”

Red Nose crews are busy every weekend, from the time they start until after the 2:00 am deadline for rides. First-time volunteers learn the value of the service early on.

“[It’s a] really well-oiled machine here,” venue manager Noelle Kekula says. “Everyone knows what they’re doing, everyone’s very friendly and cooperative and just wants to see everyone get home safe.”

More volunteers are always welcome, especially with a sense of normalcy – and holiday parties – returning to the holidays after the pandemic.

“If we had more volunteers, the wait times wouldn’t be as long, but we deal with what we’ve got,” venue manager Noelle Kekula says. “So far, so good! It’s been very busy.”

“Tonight we only have seven teams,” Cherly Morphy says. “I think it could be busier if we had the teams to fill the rides.”

For Daryl Morphy, the best part is the gratitude that people show after they get themselves and their vehicle home safely.

“It just shows you right there – everybody is happy and joking and laughing,” Morphy says. “That’s generally how your ride is. People are just happy to get their vehicle home.”

by Adam Donnelly

Riding along with Operation Red Nose in Kamloops

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