A Kamloops City Councillor says more needs to be done to help some of the volunteers who might be burning out quickly owing to the amount of work they’re putting in.

Bill Sarai says its particularly the case for a core group of older volunteers in Kamloops who step up to help out in good times like the Memorial Cup and bad times like wildfires.

“Its the same group of 20 to 40 people that are hardcore that come forward for Scotties and the Memorial Cup, and then they get thrown into an event like a fire and they’re there for four weeks, five weeks,” Sarai said.

Sarai says the City brought those concerns to Emergency Management Minster Bowinn Ma at the UBCM convention in Vancouver.

“We told the Minister that that group is older and they’re burning out,” he said. “They don’t have the luxury of after care so if they burn out or they get stressed out mentally or physically, what do they get to fall back on as say a paid staffer who would be able to utilize extended health.”

Sarai told Radio NL the hope is that the province will give these volunteers information about medical and other health benefits as part of the the training they need to complete before they can become Emergency Support Services (ESS) volunteers.

“They need to get some type of care as they’re working that they can utilize,” Sarai said. “An EAP program or something, so that if they need counselling or if they need a chiropractor or a massage, they should be able to utilize that through the service that they’re providing.”

“We need to look at what we can do for our volunteers.”

Sarai says the City of Kamloops is also lobbying for the creation of a dedicated regional support hub for evacuees who are displaced to the Tournament Capital.

The idea, he says is to free up recreational facilities like McArthur Island as those facilities aren’t meant to be used as reception centres for weeks on end, given the frequency and severity of disasters like fires and floods in recent years.

“It is in the province’s best interest to fund a year-round building where our staff can be trained throughout the year, and when an event unfortunately does happen, they are familiar with their surroundings,” Sarai said, noting such a facility would also help better train volunteers, who would be ready to go at a moments notice.