Volunteers keep Bloomsday humming

They are the epitome of efficiency.

Each weekday, a dozen or so reliable men and women, many retired, sort through Lilac Bloomsday Run registration forms, input information, double-check the data and fill envelopes with a bib tag and computer timing chips.

Thanks to these volunteers, the check-in process on May 5 and 6 is expected to be as effortless as coming down Fort George Wright Drive for the approximately 50,000 runners and walkers on May 7. Don Kardong, Bloomsday founder and executive director, says about 5,000 people donate time to Bloomsday.

“If we didn’t do this, we’d have to go out and get a job,” said Matt Cunningham, who has four Bloomsday volunteer T-shirts in his collection.

Some volunteers work only race day. Others give as many as six to eight hours a day, just because “the job has to get done,” said Jean Simpson, a retired Avista employee who has been a Bloomsday volunteer for 17 years. Helpers show up at the Lilac Bloomsday Association office on West Broadway, a nondescript building that once was a house, anytime from 9 a.m. to early evening.

The assembly line jobs begin with opening the daily stack of mail and sorting through the checks and forms.

“Here’s one with no entry form and here’s another without a check,” said Rand Palmer, head volunteer and master troubleshooter.

Some people don’t fill in their age. Others forget to mark their T-shirt size.

“Here’s a 68-year-old woman who walks the race in 1 hour, 30 minutes. With that information, I’m guessing she’s a medium. We might be wrong; we just don’t know,” said Lucy Jydstrup, a retired University High teacher who will run her 27th Bloomsday this year, missing just three.

While some volunteers solve the omission and error problems, others organize the racers’ envelopes. When race day gets closer, Palmer said, every participant’s name will be assigned to an envelope. A black plastic ankle bracket, which holds the small computer chip, is something new added to the runner’s bag this year.

Palmer, a retired data processor who is known to put in 12-hour days volunteering, said because Tuesday marked the mail-in deadline, the next two days will bring a spike in activity. After that, he said, “the mail will quiet down.”

But fret not Bloomsday registration procrastinators: Online registration, which has grown to about 50 percent of the total registrations since it was first introduced in 1997, is due by Sunday. The work won’t be nearly as labor intense for the volunteers, but they’ll still be ready for anything.