Volunteer Week 2024: One Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025 Volunteer Shares Her Experience During One Year To Go
One of the best ways you can show your love of the place you live — and open your arms to others — is by giving a bit of your time and yourself as a volunteer.
The Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025, presented by ATCO and Boeing, has been one of the best opportunities ever for my husband and I to show our love for Whistler and help roll out a giant welcome mat for the hundreds of Veterans, service members, coaches, and support staff who will come to our beautiful ski town in a little under a year’s time for the first-ever Winter hybrid Games in February 2025.
We both found it truly inspirational, and educational, being part of the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025 volunteer team during five days of community awareness events held last February near the base of Whistler Mountain to mark One Year To Go to the Games.
The response from both locals and hundreds of international visitors, many here skiing for the first time, was incredible, whether they took the time to spin the Invictus knowledge wheel and win a coveted cow bell or try their hand at Wheelchair Curling. These activations really helped to bring the reality of the Invictus spirit home.
Of course, excellence in winter sports is nothing new to Whistler, which has been the training ground for countless World Cup and Winter Olympic medalists. But the truly extraordinary thing we learned is that plenty of the competitors who will come to Whistler and Vancouver next February have never even been on adaptive skis or careened down an icy skeleton track before.
It was humbling to realize that competitors will spend months learning and training in these sports before competing on a global stage next winter. And that’s on top of the hard work and effort they have put in on their journey of recovery following trauma they have sustained, both visible and invisible, as wounded, injured, and sick service members and Veterans
We couldn’t help but marvel at how perfect Whistler is to host the first-ever Winter hybrid Games, given that the resort has been a leader for more than two decades in adaptive skiing and snowboarding for the blind, as well as people with physical and cognitive disabilities. The program’s mission, just like the Invictus Games, is to “create life-changing opportunities through sport to foster independence, develop memorable experiences and reach achievable goals.”
If there was one gold-medal memory from those community awareness activations, it was meeting so many potential participants, coaches, and support staff, here from as far away as Australia and Romania. The Participating Nations literally lit the village up with their colourful team uniforms, big smiles and infectious enthusiasm for all that Whistler and the Games have to offer.
Few could rival the sheer glee and determination of the Nigerians — a people far more accustomed to sand than snow — who came to wintery Whistler vowing to train for the Games just as hard as the famed Jamaican National bobsleigh team that wowed the world at the 1988 Calgary Olympics.
How could you not be inspired by that?
– Contributed by Sue Kelly, Volunteer.
This post is part of our National Volunteer Week content series, featuring the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025 Volunteer Program, supported by London Drugs.
There’s still time to apply to volunteer for the Games if you haven’t already. The application period closes on April 30th and all you need is enthusiasm, adaptability, a positive outlook, and willingness to learn. Locals in Metro Vancouver and the Sea to Sky corridor are strongly encouraged to submit an application to volunteer. It takes less than five minutes to apply, and only a few days of your time to gain the experience of a lifetime!
To apply to volunteer, register below!
