Chamber of Commerce promotes Sault not-for-profits at first ever volunteer expo (10 photos)

An addition to this year’s series of Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce expos was the Volunteer Showcase, highlighting the availability of a variety of not-for-profit organizations and the work of their volunteers in the community, held at Station Mall Saturday.

“We’re going to look to making it an annual event,” said Rory Ring, Chamber of Commerce CEO, speaking to SooToday.

“Roughly 10 per cent of our chamber membership is from the not-for-profit sector so we wanted to make sure we could do something for that segment of our membership, but we also opened it up to all the not-for-profits that are looking for volunteers.”

Approximately 20 not-for-profit groups were on hand at booths set up throughout the mall for Saturday’s expo.

Ring, who has lived and worked in the Sault for three years, said “I think the Sault is a great community for volunteerism, but also for financial support. We see the local business community raising a tremendous amount of money for these community organizations through sponsorships and donations. A lot of employers are good with letting their employees take time off to do volunteer work, and that’s an amazing thing to see in a community.”

Among the groups at booths in the mall (shown in our photo gallery) were the John Howard Society, Hiawatha Highlands, Algoma Family Services, Ontario Finnish Resthome Association, Sault Community Theatre Centre, The Twinkie Foundation, The Brain Injury Association of Sault Ste. Marie and District and the Sault YMCA.