‘Snow Angels’ Help Elderly Shovel After Ontario Snow Squalls, More Volunteers Needed

People shovel snow in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood of Ottawa, on Friday, Dec. 23, 2022. The Canadian Press/Spencer Colby

Good Samaritans are helping thousands of elderly and disabled residents in Ontario with snow shovelling after the weekend’s intense storms, and as demand rises more volunteers are needed.

For nearly a decade, a community-driven platform called Snow Angels has been matching volunteers with those in need of shovelling help across Canada. Last weekend’s heavy snowfall in Ontario resulted in numerous emails and phone calls, said Lincoln McCardle, founder of the platform, with new people signing up for help daily and volunteers trying to catch up.

“Our volunteers are doing what they can to meet the demand but the first major snowfall is hard on everyone,” McCardle told The Epoch Times in a Dec. 3 email. “We have new people signing up for help every day in addition to the 1000s that have signed up over the last 10 years.

“Right now, many volunteers have to first shovel themselves out before they can help anyone else,” he added. “We'll get caught up eventually–it will just take a bit.”

On the platform, individuals can post requests for assistance with basic details of what they need cleared. Volunteers can view nearby requests and offer help, or those in need can proactively contact volunteers listed near their location.

It’s like a “dating site,” said McCardle, only it connects help-seekers with volunteers ready to lend a shovelling hand.

Snow Angels began as an idea in 2015, when McCardle, a resident of London, Ont., tried to help his elderly neighbour by clearing her walkway, he told The Epoch Times in an earlier interview.

But unlike most Snow Angels beneficiaries, who joyfully receive free help, his neighbour was not happy–she had already paid someone to do the job, and if he shovelled for free, her money would go to waste.

That did not discourage McCardle, however. He created a Facebook and a Twitter account called “Snow Angels London” to remind the community to check on their neighbours and help with snow removal. The initiative caught the attention of a local web development company, Simalam, which offered to build the platform that Snow Angels is on today.

After launching in London, the project expanded as cities like Barrie, Collingwood, Orangeville, Markham, and Stouffville joined. It has since reached communities as far away as Victoria, B.C., and Nova Scotia.

Any community can get on board the user-friendly platform, which McCardle describes as “an experiment in kindness.”

“I just say to them, go ahead. The system is there, the platform is in place. As long as you promote it locally ... the system is going to work for you,” McCardle says.

After the weekend’s snow storms left thousands of Ontario residents without power and some areas covered in up to 140 centimetres of snow, many towns and cities emailed McCardle in the hope of adopting and promoting the program.

In the meantime, he continues to encourage volunteers to turn shovelling into a fun, social event by forming a “halo”–a group of friends or neighbours who shovel together.

“There is strength in numbers and not only is the shovelling easier–we heard the cocoa afterwards even tastes better!” he wrote on the Angels’ website.