The Canadian Cancer Society’s Daffodil Month campaign is just around the corner, and this year the Fergus Elora area is adding an extra day.
Daffodil campaign chair for Fergus and Elora Sandi Klassen said she was asked by the Canadian Cancer Society to campaign not just on Friday and Saturday as usual, but to try to add Sunday this year as well.
“When I took over … too many people didn’t want to do this sort of thing on a Sunday because of church and (the) rest of it,” Klassen said. “But all three is what we’re looking for this year.”
April is Daffodil Month and daffodil pin days take place this year on April 10, 11 and 12, the weekend after Easter.
Klassen is a two-time leukemia survivor herself, and because she looks at her post as chair as a way of giving back for some of the services she has used from the society, she runs the volunteering in a stress free environment.
“I will fill in the blanks from Friday and Saturday first but if anybody says, ‘Oh is there a Sunday?’ I’ll click them in without the blink of an eye,” she said. “If I run out of volunteers, then we have two shifts.”
In past years, Fergus and Elora have had volunteers posted at Walmart, Zehrs Markets, Shoppers Drug Mart and Fresh Co. in Fergus and L&M Food Markets in Elora. This year will be no different. There are two shifts scheduled, one from 9 to 12 and another from noon to 3pm, Klassen said. Because the area is smaller, she likes to keep it to two shifts whereas bigger areas, such as Guelph, often have three shifts a day.
Last year, the Fergus and Elora campaign raised $2,200 for cancer research and Klassen is hopeful the campaign will exceed that amount this year, especially with the additional day.
Last year was the first where volunteers weren’t selling live daffodils, Klassen said.
“A lot of people were complaining,” she remembered. “They were saying, ‘We sure miss the daffodils. It’s the first sign of spring. I look forward to it, like putting them on the table’.”
She also said some of her volunteers were disappointed they would not be selling live daffodils.
Instead of buying live daffodils, people were asked to donate and received a daffodil pin. Klassen said on paper it looks like the campaign did not make as much as when live daffodils were sold. However, when the bottom line was calculated, the pins generated more revenue for cancer research than the live plants did in this area, she said.
“We found there’s not as much wastage (with the pins),” Klassen said.
“The cost of shipping daffodils … the cost of the transportation, the cost of the actual flowers and then when they get here, quite often there would be rotten ones on the bottom of the box or there’d be ones that didn’t sell.”
With the pins, 100 per cent of the money gathered goes to research, she said.
With the added day this year, Klassen said a total of about 60 volunteers will be needed. Most of the people who volunteer are repeaters, but she is always looking to recruit more people.
“Most of [our volunteers] have the ‘gift of the gab’ and that’s what you need,” Klassen said. “You almost have to get in their faces and talk to them.”
Being such a small community, she said there’s a high likelihood that volunteers will run into people they know during their shift.
For Klassen, she does it to give back to the society and to talk to people.
“I can’t afford hundreds of dollars (to donate) so I spend hundreds of hours,” she said. “It’s a lot of fun. I’m a people person and when I retired I don’t see that many people anymore so it gets me out, it gets me talking to people and after all these years people now know my name.”
For those interested in volunteering with the daffodil campaign visit http://wellington.myccsschedule.ca/events/index for more information.
