Donna Kelso and Wayne Sargent of the Osoyoos Kiwanis Club had a booth at Participate Osoyoos to promote Kiwanis, but they saw few visitors. (Michele Weisz photo)

A handful of organizations represented at last Wednesday’s Participate Osoyoos event expressed disappointment about poor participation.

The September event, previously known as Mass Registration, provides local organizations with a free table at the Sonora Centre to promote themselves to members of the community.

In past years, local groups’ tables have lined the sides of the gym and spread across the centre. This year, barely a half dozen groups took tables around the sides and only a slow trickle of people visited the event.

The event has been held annually in Osoyoos for more than a decade and the number of organizations and visitors has dwindled significantly in recent years. In the past, groups used the event to encourage people to register or volunteer.

The few groups that were there expressed their disappointment by the turnout.

“I can remember when they used to have full tables…this is sad,” said Emergency Social Services Director Eileen Varga.

Varga and fellow volunteer Judy Dallas were at the event to promote the work that ESS does within the community. The organization provides essential services to those who have been forced from their homes due to natural disasters and other emergencies.

Providing food, clothing, temporary childcare and emotional support are just some of the services provided by the volunteers for up to 72 hours. The ESS in Osoyoos is run entirely by volunteers.

Varga recalled that on one day following the recent flood she and Dallas each worked for 30 hours. They had hoped that by attending Participate Osoyoos they could interest people in joining them.

“People want to help in an emergency, but it’s human nature to lose interest,” Varga said.

Firefighters Steve Harrison and Karl Fichter were at the event for the first time. The Osoyoos Fire Department, which numbers 28 on-call volunteer members, had spent several weeks advertising that it was recruiting members but had not had any luck.

“People don’t want to make a commitment,” Fichter said of the recruitment process and training schedule.

They had hoped for better results by attending Participate Osoyoos, where they displayed their personal protective equipment and gear, but were visibly disheartened by the lack of attendance.

Donna Gordan, executive director of the Desert Valley Hospice Society brought certified palliative massage therapist Shelley Middleton to the event to educate the community about the society’s palliative, support care and advanced care-planning programs.

Gordan said she believes that people are no longer attending the event because they can register for programs online.

Gordan said that she was not sure if she would continue to attend the event, but that she and the society would “always be here to support our community and the town.”

Donna Kelso, secretary treasurer of the Osoyoos Kiwanis Club, also thinks that online registration has contributed to the lack of turnout. “Maybe they didn’t think it was worth coming. Now a lot of people do things online,” she said.

Kelso and Osoyoos Kiwanis Club President Wayne Sargent came to the event to remind the community about the club and all of the ways it helps in the community.

In 2015 the international service club, which is found in over 80 countries around the world, celebrated its 100th anniversary and its 10th in Osoyoos.

Among the many programs offered by the Kiwanis Club is the yearly Save Old Spectacles program which encourages the community to donate old eyeglasses so that they can be distributed in less-developed areas of the world.

The Kiwanis Club’s Terrific Kids program is a reward program that promotes self-esteem and character building. Terrific is an acronym for Thoughtful, Enthusiastic, Respectful, Responsible, Inclusive, Friendly, Inquisitive and Capable.

The sentiment among those who did make use of the tables was that the event might cease to exist soon.

Many recalled past years when people lined up to get into the community centre gymnasium, which was filled with tables, to register for programs but, “it keeps getting smaller and smaller,” Kelso said.

MICHELE WEISZ

Osoyoos Times