Red Nose volunteers will offer more ride nights this year

Hundreds of volunteers are needed for Operation Red Nose to fill an important role in the St. Malo region over the Christmas holidays. 

This free designated driver program helps people and their vehicles to get home safely during the holiday season. 

Coordinator Charmaine Gosselin says they plan to offer this service for six consecutive weekends, starting next weekend. 

The way the calendar works out this year, they are offering 13 ride nights, an increase from the nine nights offered last year. 

“In total, we’re looking for around 200 volunteers,” says Gosselin, “and there’s no way that we can rely on just one community to provide 200 volunteers.” 

Operation Red Nose St. Malo is offering rides in over 20 rural communities in the region, from Lowe Farm to Grand Pointe to Vita, as well as Tolstoi. 

She is hopeful that enough volunteers will sign up from across the service region. Click here to reach the online volunteer form. 

Gosselin says they also need more sponsors to help pay for the additional nights. 

“The more rides we give, the more our costs increase for food and gas for the volunteers. So, we’re super thankful those sponsors have been helping us out so we can offer all of those 13 ride nights.” 

There are 46 businesses supporting them this year. 

Operation Red Nose St. Malo is planning to free rides during the Friday and Saturday nights starting November 24th and will also offer rides on December 31st. 

Gosselin says these ride nights are a lot of fun and people will often sign up to volunteer as a group from work, or a bunch of friends wanting to volunteer together. 

For a safe ride over the holidays, call the Red Nose dispatch line for the St. Malo region at 204-347-5518 and schedule a time for one of the volunteer drive teams to bring you home. 

The team will arrive at your destination, two volunteers will drive you and your guests home in your vehicle while the third member of the team will follow in the team escort vehicle. 

When you arrive at your drop-off location, the team will reunite and continue to their next assignment.

-With files from Dave Anthony

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