Dan McGee has been volunteering with The Watch Program in Lethbridge since its inception back in 2019 and said his time with the program has been not only fulfilling but also rewarding.
“It’s remarkable how anyone you deal with from any level of society can teach you something and personally I’ve learned a great deal,” McGee told Global News at a news conference where the City of Lethbridge announced the program won a provincial award.
McGee is one of the 20 some volunteers with the program that were recognized for their work.
Sarah Amies, community director of Downtown Lethbridge BRZ said the program has been a success for the area, giving residents and businesses another resource to rely on, other than calling Lethbridge police.
“The Watch is an active and consistent presence in the downtown and what they are doing is essentially freeing up the downtown policing unit to address matters that really are police matters,” Amies explained.
Program manager Jeff Cove said The Watch was originally created in an effort to manage issues that don’t require a police presence, and to lean more on finding connection with those who may need a little extra help.
“When its about outreach, (outreach) services … sometimes it’s about having a conversation and then off you go at the end of your day,” added Cove. He said the program now fields thousands of calls a year.
“To have location checks, wellness checks, providing lifesaving first aid and Narcan — all those things that we do — we involve the police in about 24 per cent of those 1,400 things that we had done,” Cove explained.
“Fast forward to last year, we were up almost 6,000 events and things The Watch members had done and we involved the police in less than one percent of those.”
The Watch and its volunteers were recognized provincially by receiving the 2022 Community Justice Award. They were nominated in the partnership and engagement division.
“Advocating for people, getting people into detox and getting them into treatment and all that outreach stuff, that’s what we were recognized for so it was a pretty big deal for this team because they are the ones that come up with the ideas about who we should make contact with and what services we might provide,” said Cove.
He added he’s proud of the work the watch has done and he hopes to see the program grow, expand and build on connecting the right people with the right resources.