Operation Red Nose will give you a ride home in Kamloops

KAMLOOPS – The car service that helps you get home safely after having a little too much to drink is back.

Operation Red Nose kicks off the annual service tonight, Nov. 27, in Kamloops and will accept calls for rides from 9 p.m. until 3 a.m. program coordinator Katie Klassen says.

“Last year we gave 1,265 rides home and it keeps going up every year,” Klassen says, adding seven years ago when she first started the Red Nose drove only roughly 700 people.

Available Friday and Saturday nights through to New Year’s Eve, a team of three volunteers will drive your vehicle home for a donation. This year Klassen says all proceeds will go to Pacific Sport Interior B.C. to help support amateur athletes in the province.

Klassen says the busiest times of year are always the first few weeks of December due to Christmas office parties and on New Year’s Eve. She says as soon as it hits midnight on New Year's Eve it's mayhem for the drivers.

Klassen is grateful for the new volunteers who signed up this season, but says the service can always use more.

“The more teams we have on the road, the more rides we can provide because sometimes we get overloaded with calls,” she says. “It’s a fun volunteer opportunity… and a great social thing.”

Anyone interested in volunteering for Red Nose needs to fill out a criminal record check and volunteer application available at the RCMP headquarters on Battle Street. When checks are complete the RCMP send the applications to Klassen who puts the volunteers on the road.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Dana Reynolds at dreynolds@infonews.ca or call 250-819-6089. To contact an editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.