West Vancouver shares experience volunteering at the Olympics

The world was captivated by the Olympics in Paris, from the opening ceremony July 26 that featured Celine Dion performing on the Eiffel Tower, through all the events, to the closing ceremony August 11.

Behind the scenes, a huge team kept busy making sure everything went smoothly.

And that included 45,000 volunteers, who were selected from over a quarter of a million people who had applied for the honour.

Anne McCormick, a resident of West Vancouver, was one of the lucky ones.

The application process wasn’t easy, McCormick says, but it started simply enough, with a Google search to figure out how to get involved.

“That was the whole beginning, the process of filling in the forms and all the qualifications that they wanted,” she said. “So it wasn’t easy, because there were like five pages and all these questions. ‘And why do you want to do this? What will you bring to the table? What’s your experience?’”

The questions were extensive, and then after submitting them, the wait began.

All told, it took about a year before she heard back.

“Literally, I waited almost like 11 months, and then there was a final interview,” she said.

The interview was conducted via Zoom by a three-person panel.

“You didn’t see [the panel members], and you had to answer I think 15 questions, and you only had two minutes to answer each one,” she said.

“So it was quite nerve-racking, because I didn’t know what they were going to ask me.”

More waiting followed.

“And then finally, they sent me a letter saying I’ve been accepted,” she said.

Then came the work of making the arrangements to be there, and most of the expense came directly out of her own pocket.

“You had to pay for all your accommodation, for all your travel,” she said.

“The only thing that was covered was just food for the volunteers.”

Each volunteer received 23 Euros per day for food, and there were plenty of places to spend that money.

“[For] Team Canada, there was a great big tent, and there must have been about 30 different restaurants there, like pop up restaurants…a good variety of food.”

Even better than the food though was the swag.

“Lululemon was the sponsor for the Team Canada uniforms,” she said. “So they gave us like over $800 worth of Lululemon uniforms to wear, which was great, a great bonus.”

Soon after she got to Paris, the work began — and there was plenty of it.

“They asked us before we were interviewed … what roles would you like to do?,” she said. “They gave us a list, and then they give us a description of what those roles consisted of. So I chose a bit of everything, because the more you wanted to do, the more opportunities you had to get selected.”

One of her tasks was to watch the doors of the areas where the athletes could go and relax behind the scenes with their families and friends.

Another task was general customer service, helping people find where they needed to go and telling them what events were happening where.

“Then the next task I had was there was live Canada TV on, so just getting people to sit properly and not make noise,” she said “Just getting all the fans there to sit there, and they could watch live what was going on and monitoring that.”

Volunteers also had the opportunities to meet and work with the athletes.

McCormick says the highlight of the experience was being able to meet people from around the world.

“For me, it was a once-in-a-lifetime journey, helping out the Canadian team and just being connected to people from all over the world,” she said.

“It was rewarding, I met so many people…and just getting to experience the games from behind the scenes.”

Many of the volunteers will be keeping in touch with each other, and some are now talking about visiting each other in their home countries.

“So many of them want to come to Vancouver, so to exchange homes would be great,” she said. “That would be the best.”

McCormick says she is considering applying to volunteer for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“I wouldn’t mind, you know, I’ve got this experience, so it’ll probably be helpful for the next one,” she said.

“But a lot can happen in four years.”