Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

SAFE RIDES HOME

Operation Red Nose Kamloops raises almost $19,000 for BC Interior athletes

Jan 5, 2023 | 4:24 PM

KAMLOOPS — It really was back to business as usual for Operation Red Nose in 2022. After two years heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the designated driving service was back to almost full capacity.

“A total of 634 rides for our campaign this year, which is actually double what we did last year, so we were super pleased with those numbers,” Elsa Poppleton, ORN Kamloops coordinator tells CFJC Today. “That’s a significant amount of rides on the road, getting everyone home safely during the holiday season. And of course, all that money raised goes to Pacific Sport and keeping that money in our community.”

This year was the 26th year of Operation Red Nose in Kamloops. After the two pandemic years affected the program, they were able to raise a significant chunk of change, all earmarked for the athletes Pacific Sport BC Interior helps fund.

“We have about 120 [athletes] in our Interior region and they receive a travel grant of about $400 annually, as long as they’re making their national competition,” Carolynn Boomer, Executive Director of PacificSport BC Interior explains. “Let’s face it; $400 is small when most Nationals are back east — or at least east of B.C. – so that’s about $15,000 annually.”

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Boomer has been involved in every Red Nose campaign since the first one. One of the mandates of Operation Red Nose nationally is to ensure all funds raised stay in amateur sports in the community in which they were raised.

“The clients can feel, whether they care about sports or not, the money stays in Kamloops,” Boomer says. “It provides this much-needed assistance to support these athletes for them to try and make their dreams come true.”

While this year felt like a normal year, the number of volunteers was down from previous years that weren’t affected by the pandemic.

“We had over 100 volunteers this year. That’s up from last year,” Poppleton says. “But we would like to see that number to be more. As I said, the more volunteers we have, the more success we have with our campaign.”