Volunteers were once again out in full force in Williams Lake this year providing safe rides home to local residents.
Coordinator Deborah Pickering is the Coordinator for Operation Red Noise in the Lake City.
“We do nine nights altogether and New Year’s Eve is our big night. The first eight nights we have a minimum of 15 people for teams of three. We have a driver and a navigator. They get in the client’s vehicle with them, and then we have a chase car. We drive there in a vehicle and also the vehicles we use are all donated by every car dealership in Williams Lake free of charge, full of gas and plated.”
Pickering says those vehicles go to the establishment of where the people want to be picked up, they drive the person and their vehicle home, and then the chase vehicle picks up the volunteers.
She says this New Year’s Eve was a lot like last year’s.
“We actually did 65 rides this year, so that’s pretty good. Last year we did 68 on New Year’s. We’re pretty much on par every year, give or take a few rides.”
Pickering says they closed at 3 a.m. this year although they did provide a couple of rides after that.
She says the overall numbers this year were also in line with previous years.
“A total of 286 rides were given in 2024, compared to 297 in 2023, and 284 in 2022. So we don’t vary very much in numbers each year.”
Pickering says the donations received from this year will be split among four groups…the Cariboo-Chilcotin Youth Fiddlers Society, the Cariboo-Chilcotin Gymnastics Association, Camp Likely, and the Under-18 Female Rep hockey team.
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