They're asking for 2,000 locals to donate at least 100 hours of their time in the middle of a Canadian summer that is already too short.
And they don't think they'll have any trouble making a quorum?
"Shouldn't be too difficult," Volunteer Hamilton's executive director Melanie Winterle says, with her tongue definitely not in cheek.
Winterle was among Monday's speakers at the launch of the drive to enlist the volunteers required to staff the 2015 Pan Am Games soccer tournament, all of which will be played in Hamilton.
An hour earlier in Toronto, the organizing body of the Pan Am Games launched a province-wide search for 20,000 volunteers for the multi-sport athletic festival that will bring 10,000 athletes and officials from the Americas and the Caribbean to southern Ontario.
It's being pitched as the largest non-wartime volunteer program in Ontario history.
Hamilton held its own volunteer coming-in party, largely because of the particular history of volunteerism in this town.
Both Winterle and Mayor Bob Bratina pointed out Monday that 46 per cent of Canadians act as a volunteer at some point of their lives but in Hamilton, the figure is 56 to 57 per cent.
"I think we naturally participate in our community," Winterle says. "Everybody's reason for volunteering is different. People volunteer because it's the right thing to do. We volunteer because it's actually a benefit to our social life, it's a benefit to our emotional well-being, it gives us a chance to try out new skills, those types of things.
"There is a lot of value in volunteering."
Toronto 2015, counting on that message getting out and sinking in, has established a central registry system. Prospective volunteers, including those from the Hamilton area, should visit TORONTO2015.org/volunteer to begin the registration process. Anyone who wants to volunteer but doesn't have access to a computer can stop by Volunteer Hamilton at 267 Main St., where someone will help move the application along.
There's a geographic component to the volunteer structure, so Hamilton-area registrants will be steered mostly toward the soccer tournament.
Volunteers will get training and must commit to working 12 days of the Games from 10 to 12 hours a day. A solid command of English is a must and officials are also looking for those with facility in Portuguese, French and Spanish, the other core languages of Games participants.
In Hamilton, 1,800 of the volunteers will work somewhere outside the Pan Am stadium in a wide variety of duties. The other 200 will be in the stadium helping game-day officials, working with the media or staffing the locker rooms and other team locations.
And although the minimum age is 16, there is a special subcategory for younger "inside-the-ropes" volunteers such as ball fetchers, flag-bearers and team escorts.
Then there's the "top shelf" of volunteers. Sixteen people — one for each men's and women's squad in the tournament — will be embedded with their assigned team and will live with their players in the athletes' village in east-side Toronto. They'll travel back and forth from Toronto for games and practices. As the team's liaison to the Games, to Ontario and to Hamilton, these individuals must be able to respond quickly to any problem. Fluency, not in English but in the official language of the team they're assigned, is a necessity.
"We need fixers in that role," says Kelsey Kumhyr, Hamilton's supervisor of team and official services, herself a volunteer. "It's a complete concierge mentality."
Kumhyr emphasizes that there will be "no out-of-pocket" expenses for the team liaisons.
All volunteers at the Games will receive training, a certificate from the Government of Ontario recognizing their contribution and a keepsake Pan Am uniform. Volunteers who have an OSAP student loan will not have to meet the summer job requirement and new post-secondary graduates will receive an extra six months' grace in starting their loan repayment.
Hamilton is a hotbed of participatory soccer, with some 25,000 registrants in the Hamilton and District Soccer Association, so a healthy chunk of the volunteers should emerge from that crowd.
"I think the volunteers will come from the community as a whole, as well as soccer," says John Gibson, president of the HDSA and the operations manager of Pan Soccer. "Because of our multiculturalism, we have lots of immigrants who love soccer, but don't get to play it. They want to get involved in the sport, and are passionate about it. I think it'll be a mix, and a balance.
"And because of the time commitments required, it will be a challenge for some."
The soccer tournament puts an extra burden on the volunteer grid because it starts two days before the Games' official July 10, 2015, opening.
But, given the propensity of Hamiltonians to help out, Winterle doesn't think finding enough volunteers will be the problem.
"I'm worried already that we're not going to have enough opportunities for them," she smiles.
smilton@thespec.com
905-526-3268 | @miltonatthespec
