Organizers for the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships are still looking for volunteers.
Co-Chair Gail Perepelkin was busy signing people up last week at the Lacombe Fall Active Living Fair.
"We're looking at people volunteering for at least four draws," she said. "The time commitment would be about four hours a day."
Perepelkin says they need a total of about 200 volunteers. They are currently sitting at about 160.
Organizers are looking to fill a wide variety of positions including ticket takers, catering, ice technicians, timing, statisticians, social media, photography, recycling and garbage, construction, and food services.
There is also a big need for first aid volunteers.
Perepelkin says the event will have a big impact on the local area.
"We're looking at about an extra $2 million to $3 million coming into the community. We're hoping to sell at least 1,500 tickets a day; we can accommodate 2,000 people a day. All the hotels are booked already in all the surrounding communities. We're using all of our local restaurants for our catering...It's going to be interesting for people to see all these international teams in our city wandering around, taking in all of our sights and just enjoying our community."
She's also hoping the local curling club will benefit.
"We're hoping that we get more people interested in curling. The interest worldwide has really increased. That's all because of our Canadian curlers. They have been phenomenal in their advertising and their promotion of the sport."
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The 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships will take place at the Gary Moe Auto Group Sportsplex and the Lacombe Curling Club from October 27 to November 2. The event will feature 36 teams from around the globe. The Pan Continental Championships is a qualifier event for the World Championships for both men’s and women’s teams from World Curling’s, Americas and Pacific-Asia competition zones.
Last year's event was held in Kelowna, BC.