Zoo a ‘happy place’ for tire­less vol­un­teer

Am­bas­sador reaches 650 hours of ser­vice in less than a year

Winnipeg Free Press - - TANK - AARON EPP

AN­DRA Spragg is a com­mit­ted vol­un­teer. Af­ter less than a year of vol­un­teer­ing at Assini­boine Park and Zoo, the 53-year-old West­wood res­i­dent has al­ready given more than 650 hours of ser­vice.

“I’m the type of per­son, when I com­mit to some­thing, I com­mit,” says Spragg, who vol­un­teers as an am­bas­sador in the zoo. “I’m very pas­sion­ate

SVol­un­teer op­por­tu­ni­ties

THE fol­low­ing is a list of vol­un­teer op­por­tu­ni­ties for Win­nipeg and sur­round­ing ar­eas. For more in­for­ma­tion about these list­ings, please con­tact the or­ga­ni­za­tion di­rectly. Vol­un­teer Man­i­toba does not place vol­un­teers with or­ga­ni­za­tions, but can as­sist you in find­ing an op­por­tu­nity. To learn more about its pro­grams and ser­vices, go to vol­un­teer­man­i­toba.ca or call 204-477-5180.

Assini­boine Park and Zoo is seek­ing am­bas­sadors to greet vis­i­tors, pro­vide di­rec­tions and en­hance guest ex­pe­ri­ences at the zoo and park. Vol­un­teers may also train to be zoo in­ter­preters. Shifts are three hours long and avail­able seven days a week. Must be 16 or older. The zoo is also look­ing for stu­dents aged 14 to 18 to join a team of Zoo Camp Crew vol­un­teers. Earn a

40-hour vol­un­teer credit in one week, gain work ex­pe­ri­ence for your re­sumé, make new friends and have fun while sup­port­ing the camp coun­sel­lors at the Zoo Day Camp. Shifts are 8:30 a.m. to

4:30 p.m. on week­days over the sum­mer holi- about it. It’s a happy place.”

Be­fore she be­gan vol­un­teer­ing, Spragg typ­i­cally vis­ited the zoo twice a year.

Dur­ing one of her vis­its, she was fas­ci­nated by the in­for­ma­tion a zoo am­bas­sador shared with her, so she in­quired about vol­un­teer­ing.

She signed up last March and be­gan vol­un­teer­ing last May.

Spragg works full time as a chief war­rant of­fi­cer in the Cana­dian Armed Forces. She cred­its the flex­i­bil­ity that Assini­boine Park vol­un­teers have, as well as the ease with which they can sign up for shifts, with al­low­ing her to rack up so many vol­un­teer hours.

While Spragg’s pri­mary role as a vol­un­teer is as­sist­ing zoo guests, she is also trained as a north­ern Arc­tic

days. Ap­ply at assini­boinepark.ca/vol­un­teer or call 204-927-6074 for more in­for­ma­tion on ei­ther po­si­tion.

Help young peo­ple un­bri­dle their po­ten­tial by be­com­ing a horse han­dler or youth as­sis­tant with Ur­ban Sta­ble. The cen­tre is ac­cred­ited by the Cana­dian Ther­a­peu­tic Rid­ing As­so­ci­a­tion and pro­vides full training and sup­port to all vol­un­teers, from be­gin­ners to ex­pe­ri­enced. Re­quire­ments: 18 or older, avail­able dur­ing the day on a week­day (Tues­day, Wed­nes­day or Thurs­day) start­ing in Oc­to­ber, able to travel to the site 15 min­utes west of the West Perime­ter High­way, able to at­tend ori­en­ta­tion this Thurs­day from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and training in Septem­ber. To ap­ply or learn more, email ur­bansta­blepro­gram@ gmail.com.

Man­i­toba Mutts is look­ing for two lead vol­un­teers. The garage sale co-or­di­na­tor over­sees vol­un­teers be­fore, dur­ing and af­ter sales, or­ga­nizes drop­ping off and pick­ing up items and or­ga­nizes mar­ket­ing. Four hours a week closer to the event. The fi­nance min­is­ter leads a team of 10 peo­ple on in­ter­preter, which al­lows her to walk around with items such as fox pelts and talk about them with peo­ple.

Spragg helps with spe­cial events, and she is trained to vol­un­teer in the rest of Assini­boine Park as well.

“I love learn­ing about all the dif­fer­ent an­i­mals,” she says. “I cer­tainly have a dif­fer­ent ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the zoo with ev­ery­thing I’ve learned in the past year.”

Some­times, Spragg slips into vol­un­teer mode even when she’s off-duty.

Dur­ing a trip to the zoo as part of a work-re­lated ac­tiv­ity, Spragg shared her knowl­edge with her co-work­ers and then found her­self help­ing other zoo vis­i­tors.

“I ac­tu­ally pre­fer be­ing a vol­un­teer to be­ing a visitor,” she says. “It’s way

the fi­nance team. Du­ties in­clude: pro­vide su­per­vi­sion and sup­port; en­sure day-to-day fi­nan­cials are cur­rent (us­ing Quick­Books); or­ga­nize two to three meet­ings per year; com­plete monthly team progress re­ports; and help with year-end work, GST and au­dit prepa­ra­tions. Five to six hours per week.

The Cana­dian Red Cross is look­ing for peo­ple to join its team of ded­i­cated vol­un­teers who are pre­pared to help peo­ple im­pacted by dis­as­ters such as for­est fires and floods. For more in­for­ma­tion, go to red­cross.ca/HeroesWanted, call 204-982-7330 or email vrs@red­cross.ca.

Ron­ald Mc­Don­ald House Char­i­ties Man­i­toba is look­ing for com­mit­ted evening and week­end vol­un­teers at Ron­ald Mc­Don­ald House, 566 Ban­natyne Ave. House helpers sup­port fam­i­lies in their home away from home by as­sist­ing with laun­dry and light clean­ing, meal pro­grams and var­i­ous op­er­a­tional needs. Ap­ply on­line at rmhc­man­i­toba.org, or con­tact Ka­sia at 204-7874626 or ka­sia@rmh­man­i­toba.org to learn more. more ex­cit­ing.”

On a few oc­ca­sions, Spragg has used va­ca­tion time to vol­un­teer at spe­cial events at the zoo.

In ad­di­tion to learn­ing about the an­i­mals, Spragg says she en­joys vol­un­teer­ing be­cause the staff are amaz­ing, it’s a beau­ti­ful set­ting, it’s a way to re­lieve stress and the vis­i­tors are fun to in­ter­act with.

A few weeks ago, Spragg met a man who was vis­it­ing the zoo with his part­ner and their small child.

It turned out that the man was the pi­lot who flew the or­phaned po­lar bear cubs that the zoo res­cued in 2016 from Churchill to Win­nipeg.

Spragg showed him where the bears were lo­cated, and he showed her pic­tures from when they were be­ing

The CPA Man­i­toba Foun­da­tion fund de­vel­op­ment com­mit­tee is seek­ing a com­mit­tee mem­ber to help in the de­vel­op­ment and over­sight of an in­te­grated fund de­vel­op­ment strat­egy. The ideal can­di­date will have cur­rent fund de­vel­op­ment ex­pe­ri­ence and skills, ex­ten­sive community con­nec­tions, ex­pe­ri­ence in fundrais­ing and pro­vid­ing guid­ance to donor stew­ard­ship ac­tiv­i­ties and a work­ing knowl­edge of the char­i­ta­ble sec­tor. For more in­for­ma­tion or to ap­ply, con­tact Dono­van Hen­zel at dhen­zel@cpamb.ca or 204-987-4569.

Seven Oaks House Mu­seum, a pro­vin­cial her­itage site, needs a vol­un­teer tour guide to wel­come vis­i­tors and ex­plain the history of the mu­seum and home­stead. Back­ground ed­u­ca­tion and training is pro­vided. Flex­i­ble time com­mit­ment. The mu­seum is lo­cated in West Kil­do­nan and is open daily from Vic­to­ria Day through

Labour Day, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with some evening events. Email cu­ra­tor/man­ager Eric Napier Strong at sohmu­seum@gmail.com.

The Royal Avi­a­tion Mu­seum is look­ing for visitor ser­vices vol­un­teers to help greet peo­ple and/ trans­ported in his air­craft.

“I was happy that I could help him, and he was happy to see that af­ter al­most two years, the bears were do­ing well,” Spragg says. It’s in­ter­ac­tions such as those that make Spragg look for­ward to her vol­un­teer shifts.

“On Satur­day morn­ings, I’m up ear­lier than Mon­day to Fri­day for work, and I’m ex­cited that I’m go­ing to the zoo,” she says.

Assini­boine Park is look­ing for more vol­un­teers who can help with a va­ri­ety of du­ties around the park. Any­one in­ter­ested is asked to ap­ply on­line at assini­boinepark.ca/vol­un­teer by

May 31. or work in the Wind­sock gift shop. Shifts are usu­ally three hours and avail­able seven days a week. To ap­ply, con­tact Diana Gin­ter at 204-789-0736 or diana.gin­ter@roy­alavi­a­tion­mu­seum.com.

The Cana­dian Can­cer So­ci­ety is seek­ing lead­er­ship vol­un­teers to help plan and ex­e­cute Run for the Cure. When you be­come a com­mit­tee mem­ber, you will be hon­our­ing the tens of thou­sands of women and men di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer each year in Canada and di­rectly con­tribut­ing to breast health aware­ness and breast can­cer re­search in Man­i­toba. If you are in­ter­ested, please con­tact Donna-Lynn at Donna-Lynn.Guagliardo@ can­cer.ca or 204-786-0601.

Her­itage Win­nipeg is seek­ing vol­un­teers for Doors Open Win­nipeg the week­end of May 26-27. Vol­un­teers act as am­bas­sadors and tour guides, help­ing to wel­come guests into ar­chi­tec­tural and cul­tural gems that not nor­mally open to the pub­lic. Ap­ply on­line at wfp.to/Ku8 or con­tact Her­itage Win­nipeg at info@win­nipegher­itage. com or 204-942-2663 for more in­for­ma­tion.

SUPPLIED

San­dra Spragg vol­un­teers as an am­bas­sador and north­ern Arc­tic in­ter­preter at the Assini­boine Park Zoo when she’s not work­ing full time as a chief war­rant of­fi­cer in the Cana­dian Armed Forces.

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