Operation Red Nose is set to return to Prince Albert for a 13th year.
The Prince Albert Lions Club kicked off the year with an announcement at their Coronet Hotel home base on Monday.
Operation Red Nose is an annual December campaign intended to reduce impaired driving. Prince Albert, North Battleford and Saskatoon are the only places in the province to run an Operation Red Nose campaign.
Randy Braaten, the Operation Red Nose Coordinator for Prince Albert, said the service has provided more than 2,800 safe rides in its 13 years of operation.
“Basically, what we do is you get you home safe in your own vehicle if you don’t feel capable of driving yourself,” Braaten said.
The program free volunteer-based designated driver service catering to all motorists who have been drinking or who do not feel fit to drive their own vehicle. The program is intended to reduce the number of impaired drivers on the roads over the holiday season.
In 2024, the program kept almost 150 potentially impaired drivers off Prince Albert streets during the holiday season. Although the service is free, clients can provide donations, which under the provisions of the Operation Red Nose Program must be allocated to youth groups or groups that support youth in Prince Albert and area.
The Prince Albert Lions Club has selected area elementary schools as the recipients of these donations to assist with programming for students. As a result of the 2024 campaign, $7,700 was donated to 11 elementary schools in Prince Albert and area. The funding was given directly to the schools to provide their own programming.
Operation Red Nose will be starting on Friday, Nov, 28 at 9 pm and will operate on Nov. 29, Dec. 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, 20 and 27. It is wrapping up on New Year’s Eve. The service runs until around 2:30 am, but tends to run bit later on New Year’s Eve.
Braaten said that New Year’s Eve is probably their busiest day.
“New Year’s Eve we go a little bit later because it’s a lot of house parties and that,” Braaten said.
Operation Red Nose depends on volunteers from the community to run a successful campaign to get people home safe in their own vehicles. The volunteers can choose to work one night, a weekend or the whole season. News Year Eve is one of the busiest nights and we need a lot of volunteers.
“Basically what we’re really looking for this year is volunteers to come out and give us a hand,” Braaten said. “We’ve got our real solid core group of volunteers that have been doing it basically forever.”
Braaten and his wife Lynn Braaten have been volunteering for almost a decade. John Alexandersen, the volunteer dispatcher who is not a member of the Lions Club, is the longest serving volunteer.
“We would like to get some more younger people involved in it,” Braaten said. “We’re getting some of the older people saying, I can’t stay up past 9 o’clock at night. We’ve got to get some young people who can go all night.”
Volunteers are required to provide a criminal record check which will be provided free of charge by the City Police or the RCMP with a letter from Operation Red Nose.
Volunteer teams, made up of an escort driver, a designated driver and a navigator; ensure the individuals and their vehicles get home safe.
An escort vehicle, provided by vehicle dealerships in the city, follows and picks up the driver and navigator to take them to the next pick up or back the program headquarters for coffee and food, donated by community business. Volunteers do not have to use their own vehicles.
“Last year, we had 102 volunteers over the month. like a lot of the same people and we put in over 600 hours volunteering and I think we added up about 2,400 kilometres we drove taking people home with their vehicles,” Braaten said.
Volunteers can come as a team of three, one person for a night or weekend or every night of Operation Red Nose. Braaten said that you can meet some great people.
“If you’re volunteering, you can’t drink on the day that you’re volunteering. You’ve got to be sober because we wouldn’t want anything to happen to anybody,” Braaten said.
Braaten encouraged people to volunteer because it is fun and keeps the streets of Prince Albert Safe.
“I think that’s one of the things in the program is we know people sometimes they don’t intend to, but they go out and they’ll get a little bit carried away when they’re in the bar at a house party or something and they’ve got their car there and it’s 30 below and they want to get it home,” Braaten said.
“That’s what the service will do. It will get their vehicle home. I’ve heard a lot of times people say it saves me having to get a tow truck the next morning and boost the thing in the parking lot of the bar,” he explained.
He said it is handy to be home safe with your vehicle in the driveway.
This year, in order to not interfere with operations of the Stepping Stones Shelter, the Coronet Hotel has once again agreed to provide Operation Red Nose with space for their headquarters.
Residents wanting to volunteer can call 306 763-6673, or email rbraaten@sasktel.net or princealbert@operationrednose.com, leave a message at or text 306 425-7804.
Once the program begins operation people can call 306-763- NOSE (6673) to request a pickup.
