Volunteers are a beautiful part of the mosaic that makes up CKUA. Every time one of our volunteers shows up for a shift, they’re there because they believe that music matters, community matters and of course, CKUA matters!
International Volunteer Day is celebrated on December 5 every year. It started as an international observance mandated by the United Nations General Assembly in 1985. While we also celebrate Canada’s National Volunteer Week in April or May, that usually happens during one of our Spring Fundraisers. And fundraisers tend to dominate everything else at CKUA!
Thus, this year we are making some noise for International Volunteer Day. We have several leadership donors who have asked to give their donated hours to a volunteer, so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to celebrate our volunteers and fulfill the donors’ wishes. On December 5, each host will be featuring and honouring one facet of the CKUA volunteer world during their show.
Be sure to tune in! And if you’re one of our volunteers, please know how much we all appreciate everything you do.
Alberta Morning
8am to 9am MT
Host Grant Stovel will be playing music in honour of our fundraising support volunteers, including those who make thank-you calls, organize the thousands of music request forms submitted during fundraiser, data tracking for up-to-the-minute totals, and all the volunteers who helped sell 50-50 tickets at KDays.
This Just In
10am to 11am MT
Host Amy van Keeken will share songs and thoughts in honour of our events calendar volunteers, who review all the submitted events and then publish them in our online calendar, which gets several thousand views each month. It might not sound like the most exciting job but it’s a crucial part of supporting arts and culture around the province. It means a lot to us at CKUA and we know it means a lot to each person submitting a post about an art exhibition or dance performance.
In Our Neighbourhood
12pm to 1pm
Host Oskar Zybart will dedicate the hour to all our music festival volunteers across the province. Whether at Edmonton Folk Fest, Calgary Folk Fest, Canmore Folk Fest, Medicine Hat Jazzfest (in years past,) or other spots, our volunteers have greeted thousands of happy festival-goers and handed out hundreds of stickers, buttons, and guitar picks. They are there with smiles on their faces, whether the sun is shining or the rain is pelting down. We couldn’t have such a big festival presence without them!
Traffic Jams
4pm to 5pm MT
Host Lisa Wilton will be celebrating our tour volunteers who jump at the chance to show off CKUA’s library, studios, rooftop terrace and everything in between. These volunteers hold a wealth of information in their heads and are wonderful ambassadors for CKUA as they share our story time and time again.
The Wild Card
6pm to 7pm
Host Jasmine Vickaryous will shine a light on our events support volunteers. Whether it’s a bluegrass hootenanny or a vinyl dance party (or anything in-between), this gang is there setting up, greeting people at the door, helping with artist hospitality, cleaning up, selling merch, you name it!
Wax & Wane
8pm to 9pm MT
Host Joe Hartfeil will focus on lifting up our library volunteers. These helpful souls spend their time in our incredible music library amongst the endless shelves of records, CDs and much more. They can be found cataloguing, hauling, and performing myriad other tasks.
Friday Night Blues Party
10pm to 11pm MT
Host Cam Hayden will bring a special twist to the blues as he honours our building task volunteers, who help with such things as cleaning the kitchen, moving furniture, organizing the merch room, and anything else we can think of!
And that’ll put the cap on a very special day where we celebrate the incredible humans who give their time, their passion, their energy, and those excellent smiles, all to help keep CKUA thriving. Thank you, volunteers!
