Feeding, housing, and transporting thousands of teens is the huge task coming up for city volunteers.
On July 17, approximately 3,500 athletes, coaches, and officials will arrive in Maple Ridge to play their role in the 2024 BC Summer Games. As the host of the biennial celebration of the province's best up-and-coming athletes, it is the job of the city to provide accommodations, meals, rides around the city, and other hospitality for the visitors.
The Games directors have been recruiting a small army of volunteers, hoping for as many as 2,500, to provide these services.
Trish Spencer-Fell is the director of food services, and despite her impressive culinary career, feeding 3,000 teens over four days is a first, and admittedly a big job.
The proprietor of Whisk Catering has worked in craft services in the movie industry, and her biggest job was feeding a cast and crew of 800 for two weeks while filming The Tooth Fairy with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in Vancouver.
Now she's getting set to organize volunteers to feed a small army of athletes, about 42,000 meals. Each morning they will offer typical breakfast fare – scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, waffles and the like – in the cafeteria at Maple Ridge Secondary.
They are looking at 14,000 slices of bread, 1,700 pounds of ham, 2,600 pounds of bacon, and 24,000 eggs.
The kids will get box lunches to take to their venues, courtesy of volunteer sandwich makers, and they will take grab-and-go snacks like fruit, oatmeal bars, pepperoni sticks, and cheese.
Then Spencer-Fell and her team will be cooking dinner at Samuel Robertson Technical, and it will be served at the curling club. On the menu will be taco bowls, a barbecue night with burgers and chicken, sweet and sour chicken and chow mein, and more.
Spencer-Fell was involved with the Games when they were in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows in 1998. She was a wrestling team manager for the Maple Ridge Secondary team in high school, and joined the games as a volunteer wrestling official.
She estimates she will need 500 volunteers to feed the kids, considering meal preparation, serving, and even marshalling athletes from the buses to the food service lines.
Spencer-Fell said she enjoys getting involved as a volunteer.
"I'm happy to do it – I love Maple Ridge, I grew up here, my kids are here, and I have a business here."
She gave props to her co-director David Rooney, who has put in at least as many hours as she has.
"He has been working with me on this since day one," she said. "I'm great in the kitchen, but I'm not so great on the computer."
Athletes and coaches will be housed at 12 local schools, and they will have 24-hour support, including controlled access to the dormitory areas.
Ernie Daykin, Games vice-president, noted 3,200 mats owned by the BC Games have arrived for the athletes to sleep on. All will need to be wiped clean and arranged in place.
There will be 50-plus buses picking up athletes to drive them from schools, to meals, to venues, and back.
"For four days, we're the fourth largest transit system in B.C.," noted Daykin.
On top of that, there will be volunteer shuttle drivers taking officials and VIPs between the Games sites. Daykin was driven by these volunteers in Quesnel, when he visited the winter games there, and said they are like city ambassadors.
"They were more on the mature side, and the obvious thing about them was they were so darn proud of their community," said Daykin.
He said there are many volunteer jobs, and although some seem mundane, all are critical to running a successful Games.
Local businesses have donated everything from vehicles to burger patties, to help get behind the community event.
“This is a huge undertaking, and we know that our volunteers will help us deliver a first-rate and memorable event for the participants. I know from personal experience that you will make new friends as you meet other volunteers and that we will all come away with incredible memories of the 2024 BC Summer Games,” said Games President Laura Butler.