If you've attended a community event in 100 Mile House in the last decade, chances are good Pam DaFoe was involved in some way.
DaFoe is one of the community's more prolific volunteers helping out wherever she is needed with setting up, running and breaking down a wide range of events. The Canim Lake resident said she does it to give back to her community and meet new people.
"I like people, I like to keep busy. I've never met kinder people (volunteering). There's no backstabbing, everybody has the same purpose," DaFoe remarked. "We're all just working together and trying to build a better community."
Originally from the Coast, DaFoe is a mother of six who got her start in community involvement by helping run her children's various sports. DaFoe said her love of volunteering began at a young age when she started reading to various people in her grandmother's senior home.
"I've always volunteered but in different capacities. I was a curler so I volunteered for the curling club and helped market the club as well," DaFoe remarked.
When DaFoe and her husband retired to Canim Lake in 2012 she said she was introduced to Lucille Armstrong and Donna Barnett. The two soon became her friends and got her into volunteering in and around 100 Mile House, something she has done ever since.
Her first major stint with volunteering locally was helping Armstrong organize the first Cariboo Challenge Family Fun Night for the Jack Gawthorn Memorial Sled Dog Race in 2014. This ambitious event turned Birch Avenue into a community festival complete with games for children, a broomball tournament and a human foosball table. While the event was only able to take place twice before the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of snow cancelled the races, DaFoe said she had a ton of fun helping make the event happen, despite the hours of work to set up and tear down.
As the years have passed Armstrong, Barnett and Kelly Carnochan, president of the 100 Mile House & District Historical Society, have called on DaFoe to help organize various community events. DaFoe said there is a core group of friends that all volunteer together at various events that she is a member of.
"We do the Easter (What's Hoppening) event, we do the Christmas Parade, the 108 Heritage Site events," DaFoe remarked. "There are about 10 of us who volunteer at the same places and if more comes up we do more."
Closer to home, DaFoe also actively supports the Hawkins Lake Volunteer Fire Department by raising money for them each year. In the summer she helps organize the Fireman's Picnic on the August Long Weekend which features a barbeque, a big slip-and-slide for the kids and a silent auction while year-round she helps run their recycling program.
"I go there every Monday and we call ourselves 'the Bottle Babes'. There's more of us in the summer and we sort out bottles and bring them into Gold Trail Recycling," DaFoe remarked. "That's how we make a lot of our money."
She is also a member of the Canim Lake Charitable Society who bake goodies for all the single people in the area each Christmas. The society also builds birdhouses and does anything else it can do to help better the community.
Outside of the personal satisfaction she gets from volunteering, DaFoe said part of the reason she volunteers is because it's good for her mental health. Two of her sons tragically passed away in a car accident at a young age and she has had to deal with breast cancer since moving to 100 Mile House.
"(Volunteering) keeps my mind away from the negative and puts it on the positive," DaFoe explained. "I didn't have a lot of self-confidence when I was young. I was really shy and volunteering took that away."
DaFoe's next major project she's volunteering for is the Girls Just Want to Have Fun fundraiser on Saturday, March 15 at the 108 Mile Community Centre. Her old friend Armstrong is running the event which will include a live auction, mocktails, games, puzzles and a light lunch to raise money for the 108 Ranch Community Association's Outdoor Recreation Committee, which plans to build an ice rink and lacrosse rink. Tickets are $30 each and are available until March 5 at Donex Pharmacy and Department Store and Mary's Country Kitchen.
"It's only ladies but we've talked to some of the firemen to come and lip sync for us to 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun'," DaFoe remarked. "Lorne Doerkson is going to come up and be our pretend bartender."
When asked what the most challenging part of volunteering is, DaFoe said it's getting new people into volunteering. She noted that once you start it's hard to stop but it is still hard to get young people especially involved with the community.
"We hear there's a lot of complaints there is not enough to do in 100 Mile House and the surrounding area yet nobody wants to step up to the plate and do it," DaFoe said. "When Lucille and I did the Cariboo Challenge Family Fun night on the street I didn't get home till 4 a.m. and I started at 6 p.m. setting up. It would be nice to have more people so we wouldn't have to do the setup, take down and run it."
DaFoe said she would like to see a new volunteer event organized similar to the Volunteer Fair Barnett has put on in the past. Rather than just be an information session, however, DaFoe said this event would be for people to sign up to volunteer at different upcoming community events to get some firsthand experience.
"I'd also like to start a seniors advocacy group cause there are so many seniors here that are struggling. The other day I was at Save-On-Foods and I saw a man clearly freezing his butt off, his moustache was just full of icicles. I asked him if he was ok and said I haven't eaten for two days and I don't like to see stuff like that."
