A place apart

It never fails to impress. Surely there can be no other community that participates so freely, so graciously and as often as the folks of Prince Edward County.

On Friday morning dozens of volunteers began setting up and preparing for the Great Canadian Cheese Show on the Prince Edward County Fairgrounds. All weekend long they guided visitors, assisted exhibitors, picked up discarded glasses and generally served to make the festival a polished, rich and welcoming event. As many as 90 volunteers gave their time and energy to this festival— eager to present the County in the best possible way.

On Saturday morning County firefighters and dozens of other volunteers were up early to greet nearly 700 runners for the Wellington Women’s Half Marathon & Half a Half running event. They scattered throughout the countryside around Wellington to assist race participants navigate the course and advise motorists bound for the dump and elsewhere to slow down and give a wide berth.

On Sunday morning another hundred or so volunteers converged very early in the morning upon the Prince Edward Fitness and Aquatics Centre in Picton for the seventh Kids of Steel triathlon event. Many fanned out onto the race course working to ensure a safe event for the children, some as young as three. Others marshaled the youngsters into groups and assisted the younger ones in the transitions from the pool to the bike and to the running event. Some kept track of time— others awards and refreshments.

These were just three events on this past weekend. I am certain an equal number of folks were volunteering their time and resources to other events, activities and worthy causes around the County that weekend. This is typical. Most other weekends volunteers are busy providing the labour, the energy and talent to improve the lives of others among us. It is just that kind of place.

Spend some time here and this helpful spirit begins to feel commonplace—normal even. One can be deluded that this is just what happens— that residents seek out ways to aid and participate. That it happens everywhere.

But it doesn’t. Certainly not everywhere. Not very many places, I expect.

Volunteerism is the engine that drives the County’s social, athletic, arts, culture and historic vitality. It was a habit that likely grew out of necessity. Without resources and ready access to the tools and dollars available in urban areas—County families concluded that if they wanted richer experiences for their children, their stories preserved for another generation or simply a place to gather, to talk and to play—they had to band together and do it themselves. No one was coming with a briefcase to deliver it to them.

But what was borne of necessity is now a way of thinking—a way of looking at one’s community. It has shaped how we look at citizenship and our own role in this place.

Prince Edward County, as evidenced every week in these pages, is composed of people who make things happen—not for themselves but for a better place.

In doing so, we become detached from our own impusles toward comfort and convenience. While the messages of the modern world shout at us that our purpose in this life is to pursue a shiny car, a mojito by a swim-up bar or a phone that will keep you up to the minute on Justin Beiber’s antics— volunteering may be the antidote. It may be the cure for a society willing to soak itself in meaningless narcissism or empty celebrity voyeurism.

Volunteering, by definition, means giving of oneself for another. It means working together to build something we could not do on our own. These are revolutionary ideas in a consumeristic age—where even furrow-browed economists tell us our prosperity depends on us spending more and owning by the latest gadget.

Most folks who spend some time in the County come to understand that it is a place apart. This distinct quality is something many can identify with— but are challenged to articulate. For me, wandering through the place each week. it is the untiring willingness to offer a hand, the innate desire to improve the lives of others, and the cheerful eagerness of volunteers I encounter, that reminds me that this is truly a special place.

These are the traditions I pray my children absorb.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca