Volunteers accomplish 'great feat' for 35 Calgarians

A network of community-minded businesses, churches, families and individuals, all working together to help Calgarians in need – that’s what NeighbourLink is all about.

And the fruit of that cooperation was plainly seen Thursday, March 3 when 30 volunteers and 15 trucks from Perpetual Energy Inc. pulled up to NeighbourLink for an afternoon of philanthropy in action – and on wheels.

Their time spent delivering basic furniture, household items and baby supplies to 35 families living in poverty all over Calgary is the latest link in a chain of events that began at a church in December 2010.

“My wife, Shelley, was the parish nurse at Foothills Alliance Church,” said Jeff Green, VP of production operations and administration at Perpetual Energy. “We found out about NeighbourLink as one of the agencies in the city that the church worked collaboratively with to help families in need.”

The Greens were inspired to help deliver a few cribs as a couple when they heard of the challenges NeighbourLink faces in getting cribs to clients.

“Our volunteer experience in December was fantastic, but we realized that the need was much bigger,” said Green. “We knew if we could bring more people back to help we could bless more families in need.”

“Luckily I work at a company who encourages employees to participate and give back to the communities in which we work.”

Green went back to his workplace and mustered the troops, resulting in the delivery blitz on March 3 that NeighbourLink employee Kayla Bergen called “a great feat.”

“Perpetual Energy did amazing when delivering their hampers; they were so easy to work with and willingly helped one another while loading all 15 vehicles,” said Bergen, who organizes volunteers and prepares client orders in NeighbourLink’s warehouse. “We were able to get all of them loaded and on their way in just over an hour.”

Manager of Volunteer Resources LeeAnne Alexander says blitzes like these are big bonuses for NeighbourLink clients.

“Large groups of delivery volunteers are a huge asset to NeighbourLink because of the size of some of our waitlists,” she said. “Being able to get this many items out to our clients at one time is an opportunity to reach a large amount of people waiting for something as simple as a crib.”

In the end, everyone is happy; parents can rest easy after tucking their children into comfy, safe cribs at night. NeighbourLink staff can be more efficient at getting basic resources for living out to neighbours in need. And our volunteers? They’re made aware of a whole new Calgary – and the opportunities that are at their fingertips to lend a helping hand.

“There are more families in need than we realized, even in the communities in which we live,” said some of Green’s coworkers. “We need to do this again…we should try and bring family members with us.”