Local non-profit Seniors Outreach has brought back its “Snow Fairies” program to help seniors with snow removal during the winter season.
Snow Fairies is a snow removal program where seniors fill out an application and are then placed on a map where volunteers can access information about homes in need of snow removal. Snow Fairies organizer Dee Sayles says volunteers only need to find a marked snowflake on the map and in the spirit of fairies, no communication is necessary.
“In snow fairy nature, they [volunteers] will fly over with their magic wand and poof away the snow,” she says. “Much like the tooth fairy, there’s no communication necessary, they just go in and do their thing.”
Sayles says the program is important for seniors as the aim of Seniors Outreach is to keep seniors in their homes for longer and while they may be able to complete everyday tasks like cooking, labour-intensive tasks like snow shovelling can be quite dangerous for some.
“We just want to make sure that seniors are staying safe,” she says. “As Canadians, we all know that going out and shovelling snow, there are some times that you can slip and fall, and as a senior, that means a lot more than someone in their twenties and thirties.”
According to Sayles, this year’s program will operate a bit differently than last year’s. She says this year, snow removal is much more accessible, as there is no commitment like the “adopt a driveway” model used last year.
“We just found that was really difficult because if you’re going away for Christmas and you’re going to be gone for a week and you know there’s a senior that absolutely relies on you that if it snows, there were people that were quite deterred because they couldn’t commit to every time it snows.”
Last year’s program saw 30 recipients, and Sayles says she hopes the new accessible model will promote even more volunteers this year.
Seniors looking to sign up can contact Seniors Outreach at (780)-539-6255.
