Mat Hassen accepted the award for outstanding individual volunteer at Osoyoos’ volunteer appreciation luncheon April 9. Hassen said a community’s health is determined by what its members give back to it. (Trevor Nichols photo)
Just over 200 people packed into the Sonora Community Centre April 9 to celebrate the many volunteers who made Osoyoos a better place to live last year.
The town’s 15th annual Volunteer Appreciation Awards and Luncheon saw Mayor Sue McKortoff and members of town council hand out dozens of certificates to a seemingly endless line of volunteer organizations and community groups active in Osoyoos.
“You are all individuals with a sense of personal responsibility and civic pride. Your commitment to reach beyond yourselves helps to build a true sense of community in Osoyoos,” McKortoff said as she kicked off the afternoon.
Government’s can deliver all kinds of services, she continued, but can’t create “personal relationships, identity and a sense of belonging like you can: it’s the volunteers who build the community this way.”
Three major awards were also handed out at this year’s ceremony.
Those recognized for their outstanding volunteer contributions to the community included the Osoyoos Refugee Committee as the outstanding volunteer project, the Destination Osoyoos Ambassador Team as outstanding community group of the year, and Mat Hassen as outstanding individual volunteer.
“I’m much more comfortable dealing with criticism than compliments, I must say,” a smiling Hassen joked in a short speech after accepting his award.
After his speech, as fellow volunteers approached in a near-constant stream to offer their congratulations, Hassen said he believes Osoyoos, like most any community, is only as strong as the people who volunteer within it.
“You live in a community and you pay taxes and you do all the things you do in a community, but the life of a community is dependent on the degree to which people go outside their own little circle … and are involved in things,” he said. “I really do believe that the contribution that people make, rather than what they take from the community, determines the health and welfare of the community in the long run.”
Hassen said he retired to Osoyoos with the hope that it would be a community he could get involved in, but he never expected to get so involved so quickly.
Not long after his arrival, Hassen started volunteering with both the Osoyoos Museum and the Osoyoos Desert Society. His impact on the Desert Society has been particularly strongly felt over the years as he helped the society draft a five-year plan, develop policy handbooks and focus on long-term planning and sustainability.
He’s also played a key role in the society’s annual Romancing the Desert fundraiser, which has become a huge success for more than a decade.
Town councillor Jim King said Hassen has been a “tireless volunteer” in Osoyoos since his arrival, “and is often compared to the Energizer Bunny, because he just keeps going and going. Mat is alway the first volunteer to lend a hand no matter how busy he is [and he] never fails to find time for what is important.”
McKortoff also expressed her thanks to Hassen, but joked that the award was “more of a bribe, because we’ve got a few other things we’d like to get him involved in.”
Hassen called winning the award “gratifying,” but said the recognition came second to the privilege of being able to help make the town he loves a little bit better place to live.
Terri Mandalik, a member of the Destination Osoyoos Ambassador Team, echoed those sentiments in an interview after the luncheon.
“Volunteers are pretty much invisible, but without them nothing would happen,” she said.
She and fellow ambassador Candy Anders agreed that Osoyoos is bursting with people who give all kinds of their time to all kinds of different causes.
None of them really do it for the recognition, Anders said, but even the small nods of appreciation mean a lot.
“It’s still very nice to be thanked … that’s very important,” she said. “When you get up at six in the morning to go somewhere, and someone recognizes that, it really means a lot.”
The Osoyoos Refugee Society, headed by former town councillor Michael Ryan and his wife Vera, were responsible for working together for months to bring a Syrian refugee family to Osoyoos.
The family arrived in Osoyoos the second week in January and joined other Syrian refugees who were brought to Canada over the past several months after newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party committed to bringing 25,000 refugees from the war-torn nation to Canada.
TREVOR NICHOLS
Regional Reporter
The Osoyoos Refugee Committee were given the nod for outstanding volunteer project for their “tireless effort” to support the Tabanjat family as they settle in Osoyoos. Committee members who attended the ceremony include (left to right) Deb Holoboff, Don Blair, Leslee Blair, Marie Therrien, Gail Cornish, Vera Ryan, Michael Ryan. Other members of the original Steering Committee not present include Eileen Hopkins, Larry Wold, Lisa Ondejko Calder, Raouf Garram, Wayne and Janet Marcotte, Sue Read, Joan Shirriff, Sousan Najmeh, Wallace Murphy, Claire Hillier, Lee Chic. Other volunteers were also involved in preparing and outfitting the home and others are now serving as ESL teachers, tutors, drivers, helpers and friends. (Trevor Nichols photo)
The Destination Osoyoos Ambassador Team won for outstanding community group of the year at the 15th annual Osoyoos Volunteer Appreciation Awards ceremony held this past Saturday afternoon at the Sonora Community Centre. Members of the victorious Destination Osoyoos ambassador team include (left to right) Gloria Ellingson, Karen Somerset, Candy Anders, Gail Scott, who is the current managing director of Destination Osoyoos, Samarra Lypka, Terrilyn Mandalik and Gordon MacIvor. Mayor Sue McKortoff and members of town council hand out dozens of certificates to a seemingly endless line of volunteer organizations and community groups active in Osoyoos. “You are all individuals with a sense of personal responsibility and civic pride. Your commitment to reach beyond yourselves helps to build a true sense of community in Osoyoos,” said McKortoff. The event attracted another large crowd of roughly 200 volunteers, who enjoyed a nice luncheon before the awards were handed out. (Trevor Nichols photo)
Volunteers from the Osoyoos community were recognized at the 15th annual Volunteer Appreciation Awards and Luncheon last Saturday. (Trevor Nichols photo)
