Organizers and volunteers involved with Home James helped prevent over 2,000 people -- who may have been impaired -- from getting behind the wheel during the 2018 holiday season.
Home James is a local initiative, which aims to ensure that Chatham-Kent residents have a safe ride to or from events over the holiday season. In exchange, they ask for donations that are then made to local charitable organizations.
Jodie Hogg, the program coordinator, said this has been one of the busiest years for user-ship since the program first started in 2012.
"The number of kilometres that we did this year was 20,662 km, we gave 674 rides, and [provided] 2,713 people with a ride home," said Hogg.
Initially, Home James struggled to attract volunteers, but after the program put out a call for help, Hogg said they ended up with a total of 97 volunteers.
"We got a lot of new volunteers this year, which was great," she said. "We definitely need volunteers every year because it is a 100 per cent volunteer-driven program."
Hogg said they don't have the total amount for how much money was raised for local charities. However, they do expect to release those numbers at the Volunteer Appreciation Day, which is set to take place sometime in February.
