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Isolation and determination

St. Albert volunteers soldier on during pandemic
2104 VolunteerWeek 1514 km
HAMMER BROS — Henri Leroux, left, and Winston Lane assemble a wooden planter in the wood shop at Red Willow Place on April 15, 2021. Leroux spent much of 2020 as the wood shop's sole volunteer, but was joined by Lane in early April after both were vaccinated against COVID-19. KEVIN MA/St. Albert Gazette

Henri Leroux said he had to think long and hard about it when the St. Albert Seniors Association asked him last year if he could come back to volunteer in the wood shop at Red Willow Place.  

While the 80-year-old had spent most of the last four years working there, having fallen in love with it at first sight, there was now a global pandemic to consider, and his sons were concerned for his safety.

Leroux said he was stuck at home and quite bored for much of March and April 2020 as the pandemic had closed the seniors centre. In late April 2020, staff at the centre called him and asked if he could help make puzzle boards, which were in hot demand. After two weeks of reflection, and after learning he would be pretty safe as he would have the shop to himself, he said yes.

Leroux has been crafting birdhouses, planter boxes, puzzle boards and more at the centre on most days of the week ever since, and raised thousands of dollars for the association in the process. 

“I was just in here all by myself, and it was a lot of fun,” he said.

Leroux is one of the thousands of St. Albert volunteers who help keep the city’s community organizations running every year – a task that became particularly tough during the pandemic, which has seen many such groups close their doors for months. 

He and other citizens were recognized in an online celebration on April 20 as part of National Volunteer Week (April 18-24).

Challenging times 

The seniors’ centre typically has about a hundred volunteers on hand in any week to cook food, hammer out tables, run the gift shop, and ferry people and hot meals around town, said seniors’ association administrative co-ordinator Trudy Burke.  

“It’s a busy place, or was a busy place,” she said of the seniors’ centre, which was closed to the public once again as of April 7 due to the pandemic. 

The pandemic meant most of the centre’s volunteers could not physically come to work in the centre for health and regulatory reasons, Burke said – Leroux was one of the very few exceptions. The Meals-On-Wheels and transportation programs ground to a halt as a result. Other services changed substantially: the cafeteria became a take-out service, for example, and the bus driver became a deliveryman for frozen meals.

The wood shop, meanwhile, went from its usual crew of five to just one: Leroux.  

"Nobody was coming in here at all," said Leroux, adding there was one volunteer who sometimes dropped by last summer.

“At times it was quiet; just about too quiet.”

That changed about two weeks ago when fellow wood shop veteran Winston Lane returned after a year’s absence. 

Lane, 82, said he used to come by the shop every day, but had to stay at home reading, watching TV and doing jigsaw puzzles with his wife for most of 2020 due to the pandemic. 

“We were really isolated,” he said, but they didn’t feel the isolation as they talked with their daughter on the phone regularly. 

Lane said he recently got his COVID-19 vaccinations and was ecstatic to get back in the shop again. Leroux said he was glad to have Lane back, especially since it made working with power tools safer.  

Burke said she has tried to keep in touch with volunteers over the phone, and suspected that many would come back once they got their vaccinations. 

“Everyone is just waiting for that e-bulletin that says, ‘We’re open; things are back to normal.’” 

Lane and Leroux said volunteering gave them a chance to hang out with others while doing something they enjoyed. It also gave them a sense of purpose. 

“You get up in the morning and know you can come here and volunteer for a few hours,” Leroux said. 

“It just makes a world of difference.” 


Kevin Ma

About the Author: Kevin Ma

Kevin Ma joined the St. Albert Gazette in 2006. He writes about Sturgeon County, education, the environment, agriculture, science and aboriginal affairs. He also contributes features, photographs and video.
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