This is getting real.
Last Friday marked the six-month countdown to the 2023 Alberta Summer Games, which will be held in Okotoks and Black Diamond this July. More than 3,000 athletes, coaches and officials will descend on these parts for a sporting spectacle that organizers are likening to a mini-Olympics.
In order for the local board of directors, a group of 17 civic-minded volunteers headed by former mayor Sandi Kennedy, to pull this thing off, it will need the support of a great many people in an expansive list of capacities. In fact, this bi-annual event can’t happen without literally thousands in the community jumping on this bandwagon.
The good news is there are all kinds of ways to help, the most obvious of which is to volunteer your time, whether that’s sometime over the next six months as preparations intensify or during the four days of the Games. The list of volunteer opportunities on the Games website (2023asg.com) is quite lengthy so it’s pretty darn easy to find somewhere you can help.
The Games can also be an expensive undertaking, so sponsors and donors are needed to help defray those costs. Cash is always nice but in-kind or at-cost donations of goods and services are also most welcome as the list of what’s required to stage 14 separate athletic competitions, as well as to feed, house, transport and entertain 3,000 visitors, is a lengthy one indeed.
Organizers also need people to attend upcoming fundraising events, including a BBQ dinner in March and a concert in April, and when the Games arrive in late July, the public is being encouraged to get out to the venues to cheer on the youthful competitors so their experience is a memorable one.
There is no shortage of ways for people to do their part, which is fortunate given it will take an entire community coming together to make the 2023 Alberta Summer Games a success.
