Hometown PTBO: Lois Tuffin Running the Meet Your Match Volunteer Fair at the YMCA On May 8

This week on Hometown PTBO, Pete Dalliday talks with Lois Tuffin about how she came to town, her favourite eats and Volunteer Peterborough's 'Meet Your Match Volunteer Fair' on May 8 at the YMCA from noon to 4 p.m.

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Volunteer Peterborough Makes Its First Hire of a Program Manager

Volunteer Peterborough had made their first hire in Geneviève Ramage to the position of program manager.

Ramage has a degree in Humanities. Since going live in September, Volunteer Peterborough has signed up almost 70 organizations and more than 350 volunteers. Photo courtesy of Volunteer Peterborough.

Ramage was most recently the Communications Coordinator with GreenUP and worked at the Night Kitchen. Ramage has been a lifelong volunteer in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough, Tkaronto/Toronto and Gurrumbilbarra/Townsville Australia areas.

“With my expertise in building sustainable symbiotic relationships and experience in coordination and communications, I look forward to building more capacity at Volunteer Peterborough,” said Ramage.

“Having an employee to liaise with both member organizations and volunteers will allow Volunteer Peterborough to move forward even more quickly,” explained Lois Tuffin, founder and steering committee chair. “We will be able to recruit more volunteers and pair them up with organizations in need.”

Telecare Peterborough has contributed funds to support this first staff position. They have two mandates: active listening for struggling people and providing opportunities for people to volunteer in their community.

“The Board of Directors was very keen to be part of a group working to increase volunteerism in community,” explained Merrill Graham-Alton, Telecare Peterborough’s coordinator. “Many Telecare volunteers volunteer elsewhere. The opportunity to volunteer in multiple places is very enriching for Telecare’s volunteers.”

Volunteer Peterborough is a matchmaking portal for volunteers and organizations to find each other. Simliar to a dating or employment site, it matches skills and availability with groups’ needs. All of these services are also available in person.

Ramage will work out of the Peterborough Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce offices at 175 George St. N. and can be reached by emailing volunteer@volunteerpeterborough.ca.

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Volunteer Peterborough Launched to Provide Matchmaking Service For Volunteers and Organizations In Peterborough Region

An online portal matchmaking service for volunteers and organizations in Volunteer Peterborough was launched during an announcement at a Volunteer Expo at Trent University on Wednesday morning.

Tuffin was inducted into the Pathway of Fame in last during its 25th annversary under the Cultural/Community Betterment category.Photo by David Tuan Bui.

Volunteer Peterborough has been in production for a year to create partnerships to create the portal and matchmaking service. There are 50 organizations already available with another 50 coming next week with 175 volunteers signed up according to founder Lois Tuffin.

“We could encourage more of the best of Peterborough,” she said. “We could give people and make it easy for them to fall into volunteering and then fall in love with volunteering. That would be a way for us to move our community better.”

The online portal works like a dating or employment site that matches skills and times with groups’ needs with the volunteers. As of Oct. 10, these services will be available in person after an arrangement with the Peterborough Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce.

“Volunteers drive the success of large events,” explained Tuffin. “They also step up in times of crisis. Most of all, volunteers welcome new members into the community and deep in social relationships between people who have lived here their entire lives and those human connections have enriched so many lives. 

Tuffin continues to explain that after the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for volunteers increased which helped spark the conception of Volunteer Peterborough.

People stopped volunteering and organizers shifted so they moved volunteer managers to other roles because they didn't have anything to do,” she explained. “Some of those roles haven't been filled so agencies no longer have as much capacity to manage their volunteers so we're just trying to help them so that they can rebuild that membership and get those teams back up and running.”

The portal has volunteers for both in-person and virtual positions.

More information can be found by emailing info@volunteerpeterborough.ca or calling 705-930-2613.

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