Volunteers desperately needed for indigenous games

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Hundreds of Native volunteers are desperately needed for the North American Indigenous Games to be held in Edmonton June 30-July 8.

With just five weeks to go about 2,500 to 3,000 people are needed to fill an array of positions from clerk-typists to receptionists, to drivers.

About 800 volunteers have been drawn from Edmonton's Chinese, Filipino, and English-Canada populations, said an exhausted Leonita Gutierrez, the volunteers' manger.

But many more are needed.

"The main thing we need now is volunteers, especially Native volunteers, people to help out in any way they can," said an official who didn't want to be named.

Letters and requests soliciting volunteers have been sent to Native organizations but the games; office just can't wait for their response, said Gutierrez, so it has taken the pitch for volunteers to newspapers and radio and television stations.

Meanwhile, games manager Harold Burden is scrambling to find $650,000, a far cry from the original $2.3 million budget, but he expects $195,000 more from various groups.

"The city's (Edmonton) contribution has not been received yet. Also the Indian bands have not given us what they've committed," he said.

Paring the budget down meant participants in cultural events will have to pay their own costs for travel, accommodations and meals. But Burden hopes to get government funding to ease their costs.

But despite the tight budget, operations are running smoothly, he insisted.

"It makes no sense how we can do it, but we're doing it."

Staffed with 32 people, the games' office is buzzing with activity: there's a man practicing his lines for public radio announcements, there's a vigorous letter-writing campaign and a flurry of people speaking into phones booking hotels and planning the sports' and cultural events.

They may be running out of time, but the office is not running out of energy.

"The staff are working 10 or 12 hours a day now, but soon they'll have to work 12 or 14 hours a day, just like me," Burden said.