Prince George, B.C.- Northern Health has put out the call for volunteers who can carry   healthy messages to the public.

“It’s a way to try and boost our capacity to respond to some of the different requests we get from the community to take part in different community events” says Vince Terstappen, Northern Health’s Communications Advisor for Population and Public Health.

It’s a pilot project that will involve two community events. “The idea is to create a group of volunteers to recruit them, orient them , train them to be able to go out into the community, meet people where they’re at, hand out healthy living information materials, and just sort of represent Northern Health and healthy living out in the community.”

To start,   the volunteers would be called upon to staff a booth at the World Baseball Challenge “We had an opportunity to take part there and have a little information booth set up.” He says that would be the perfect place to share messages about injury prevention in sport.   Then there’s the Back to School Fair at the Pine Centre Mall. Terstappen says the volunteers will only be at places where people are already gathered for a community event.

The pilot project is meant to complement the social media messages Northern Health already sends out.

Time is short for putting together a team that can work the final game of the World Baseball Challenge, so applications have to be submitted asap.   Successful applicants will then have to attend a special orientation meeting set for August 17th at the Centre for Healthy Living on Diefenbaker Dive.

Applications can be found here.

The pilot project will be evaluated in September to see how it might be expanded to other communities under the Northern Health banner.