Kim Dineen was in her mid-20s when she decided to accompany her friends on a trip to Alberta. Her friends were moving to the province, and, in 1997, she decided to tag along.
After a visit to Lake Louise, she decided that, like her friends, she wanted to make the move to Alberta, too. One problem — she was on her own. She had no family here. So, she did what others in her family had done in their respective communities — she volunteered. She got involved.
“It’s how I was taught, how I was raised. My mom is still a volunteer to this day. My grandma volunteered. My aunts volunteered, my great aunts volunteered. You just give back to where you come from.”
Dineen’s mom is 78 and still takes shifts at the hospital gift shop in St. Thomas, Ont.
“It’s a great way to meet people. It’s a great way to learn to call on your neighbour to borrow a cup of sugar.”
She worked in Belmead Community League. She met her future husband. And, for 17 years, she’s held various positions in the Meadowlark Community League, including a four-year term as president. She also helps with the Glenwood and West Meadowlark community leagues.
“When I moved here, I got involved, rather soon, with the community league, which I knew nothing of, because we don’t have them in Ontario,” she recalls. “That’s how I met people. I went to the moms’ group there [in Belmead] when I had my first son. That’s how a group of 10 of us to this day, 21 or 22 years later, are still together. They are my support system.
She’s also an active member of the parent council at Meadowlark Elementary School, despite the fact her youngest child left elementary school five years ago. Meadowlark teaches programs in English, but also offers Mandarin immersion programs. So, the volunteers created a Chinese-themed community garden, and hope to add a gazebo to the project. It’s these types of grassroots-led community initiatives that make a neighbourhood, well, a neighbourhood. She is also active in Girl Guides.
But Dineen worries she might be part of a dying breed. We live in a new world where chats and texts have replaced face-to-face interaction. People are overworked and don’t have the same sort of time to give away to volunteering.
“Every community organization I know now struggles for volunteers. You get the ‘I’m too busy’ or the ‘not interested.’ And then the volunteers you do have are volunteering for multiple, multiple things and are over-stretched and overworked. But they still do it because that’s what they love.”
Yet, at the same time, there is pressure on community organizations to do more.
“There is a big resurgence with the City of Edmonton to really start to grow the membership of the community leagues, again,” says Dineen. “This, in turn, gets us back to the old days of block parties and getting to know your neighbour and talking over the fence. They want to see if it’s something that can be revitalized.”
With uber-volunteers like Dineen, maybe there can be a community-league Renaissance.
This article appears in the Jan/Feb 2025 issue of Edify
