Thank you. Yes, it's a great question.
When the pandemic first started I was working with a food security organization at the time. The impacts on volunteerism were absolutely hard.
The type of volunteering that Ottawa Riverkeeper does with citizen scientists is quite different. Often an individual will gather data on their own in a single point and then mail or transfer the results back. In this actually, though we as an organization needed to pivot in how we supported volunteers—more virtual training, preparing packages, ensuring that contents were safe for all parties involved—we could still ensure that it was done safely.
There were some volunteers who decided not to continue and we paused on some programs, but most were able to continue. That access to blue spaces and the more qualitative impacts of being able to volunteer—a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, being part of something bigger than yourself—all of this continued and was even more needed, I would say, during the pandemic.
Our volunteering has been able to continue. In fact, we've had very high demand. Last year we had over 225 people respond to a single request for volunteers. We're now trying to make sure that we have opportunities for all of them to be supported. It does take staff capacity. I would say that's where the long-term stable funding for the third sector, the community sector, can really make a difference.