Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
The week of February 21, 2025
WINTER WELLNESS Practice good balance and stay on your toes to avoid falls P.6
BUSINESS BEAT Local restaurant offering discount to support food bank P.8
Visit our website at peachlandpost.org • Vol. 1 Issue 8
ABOUT TOWN Find out what’s going on and where it’s happening P.11
BUYING CANADIAN Peachland hardware store sells no American products P.3
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
PEACHLAND’S LIFEBLOOD
Royal Canadian Legio Branch No. 69
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The town as you know it wouldn’t exist without volunteers
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PEACHLAND WELLNESS CENTRE
Jeff McDonald photos
By Keith Fielding
ifeblood is the indispensable factor or influence that gives something its strength or vitality. It’s not a stretch to call volunteers the lifeblood of the Peachland community. It’s also true that Peachland wouldn’t be the same place without the Wellness Centre, the 50+ Activity Centre, the arts council, the Legion, and so on, and so on. The District of Peachland has just launched its annual call for Civic Award nominations, and the winners of those awards are often volunteers, so the Peachland Post is taking a deep dive into the community’s volunteer sector – both the numbers and the people that drive them. First, the numbers. The Conference Board of Canada has calculated that if volunteers were paid at the average rate of paid, non-profit sector workers ($27 per hour) the financial value of their contribution to Canada’s gross domestic product would be $56 billion per year. With 6,125 of Canada’s 48 million population living in Peachland,
that means, on a proportional basis, Peachland volunteers contribute $7.14 million every year in donated labour. Now, the people. The Post spoke with some of the volunteers and organization leaders to understand more about this unpaid Peachland workforce. Peachland’s many retirees means an abundance of volunteers working with societies, clubs and organizations supporting a wide variety of social, recreational, cultural, and environmental causes. But they couldn’t operate without volunteers, and Peachland would be a different town without them. One of Peachland’s most visited venues is its Wellness Centre, which couldn’t function without its more than 100 volunteers, said executive director Milly Marshall. “Whether a volunteer is used to drive someone to a medical appointment, do minor home repairs, pick-up shopping, or provide companionship to someone living in isolation, we hear the same story: the volunteer gets as much gratification from providing the service as does the person served,” said Marshall. SEE COMMUNITY PAGE 7
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Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
peachlandpost.org • 250-859-4295