The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games is looking for 25,000 volunteers to put out the welcome mat for the world. Spokeswoman Donna Wilson said Wednesday that Canadians across the country have shown an interest in volunteering at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler.

“Every one of our provinces have indicated that they want to bring volunteers here,” said Wilson, adding that more than 10 per cent of the volunteers will come from outside British Columbia, along with about one per cent from other countries.

Prospective volunteers can apply on the Net (www.vancouver2010.com, and through www.workopolis.com) starting Feb. 12 - exactly two years before the opening ceremonies for the 2010 Games.

As for the ideal volunteer, Wilson said flexibility and commitment are key.

“We’ll be talking to tens of thousands of people to make sure that you are the right fit to work with us in these Games,” she said.

VANOC, as the organizing committee is called, currently has 200 pre-Games volunteers who’ve been involved in everything from hosting officials from the International Olympic Committee to shuttling people and working in the human resources department.

Dominique Anglade of Vancouver was among the pre-Games volunteers chowing down on a pancake breakfast hosted for them by VANOC on Wednesday.

Anglade, 33, is volunteering while on maternity leave from her job as a management consultant.

As someone who speaks five languages - Creole, French, English, German and Spanish - Anglade said she didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to help out with some pre-Games events before she goes back to work in three months.

“It’s a great opportunity for Canadians to get involved,” said Anglade, who moved from Montreal in 2006 and has volunteered for 20 organizations in the last few years.

As a pre-Games volunteer, Anglade said she’s helping to define the type of experience volunteers will have - how they’ll be welcomed and how the experience they already have will fit into their roles at the Games.

Volunteers are needed for an array of opportunities including translation and interpretation, transporting people to various venues and providing help in ticketing and event services.

Anyone too excited to wait for the opening of applications in February can sign up at the Vancouver 2010 website to receive volunteer updates as the milestone day approaches.

Wilson said potential volunteers from outside the Vancouver area will need to arrange their own accommodation, although a home-stay program is being planned.

After applying on online, prospective volunteers will be screened on the phone and go through a police check before they’re trained to provide excellent service and specific training for the job they’ll be doing.

Wilson said some opportunities will be more appealing than others but all volunteers need to be flexible so they can work anywhere, including at the airport and various venues.

While organizers found it challenging to get volunteers at the Olympic Games in Torino last year, Wilson said that won’t be the case in 2010 because volunteerism is more widely accepted in Canada.

More than 800 people have already applied for pre-Games opportunities next year, she said.

Paul Taylor, CEO of the Insurance Corp. of B.C., said he was a volunteer for the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary before becoming a paid employee as manager of the volunteer program.

Taylor said his volunteer experience, starting at the bid stage of the Games, was instrumental in helping him develop his leadership skills.

Before winning the Games, the bid committee decided to sell $5 Calgary Olympic Development Association memberships that came with a pin, he said.

“We went door to door across the city of Calgary selling these things to show strong support for the Games and I helped organize one of the communities to do that.”

That led to another volunteer position as chairman of the volunteer recruitment committee before Taylor landed his paid position with the Calgary Olympics two years later.

“I look back with great fondness,” he said of his experience.

“It was one of the best times of my life. Our people worked really hard, long days, long hours. You’re always dealing with the unexpected and our people just measured up. It was amazing to see what they could do.”

Taylor said Calgary had about 23,000 volunteers, 8,000 of whom were committed to the opening and closing ceremonies alone.

Developing friendships is one of the biggest bonuses for volunteers involved in a spectacle like the Olympic Games, he said.

“They got up at 3:30 a.m. to go to a staging station because they knew that another friend of theirs was also making that decision on a cold, windy day and … they weren’t going to let their friend down.”

Anyone thinking about volunteering should just do it, Taylor said.

“Don’t regret not doing it because even today I don’t think people understand what is going to happen to this community when the Olympics arrive.”