Each day volunteers work for more than 10 hours without any reward. Some of them start their day at 7.30 and finish at 10 in the evening.

More than 250 young people are volunteering at European Athletics U23 Championships in Kaunas. The leader of volunteers Saulius Kavaliauskas said that the selection process began very early. First, candidates filled in special questionnaires on the website www. Kaunas 2009.lt. Many people got interested in the event. Besides, volunteers‘ team visited schools and invited young people to volunteer at the European championships. However, one third of those who planned to volunteer changed their plans. The average age of the team is 20. They are mostly pupils and students. Only 4 from 25 senior volunteers were willing to assist at the championships.Volunteers can be young people from 14. Girls make two thirds of the team. Most of them are from Kaunas, Vilnius and Siauliai.

Volunteer Justina said that her goal was to have interesting holidays. "I am interested in sports and this championships is an exceptional event". Another volunteer Aistė claimed that volunteering is important in her personality development.

According to Saulius Kavaliauskas in volunteers‘ responsibility there are 13 different fields: doping control, media amd others. Most difficult area is physical work. One day volunteers had to unload 43 000 bottles of mineral water.

"Volunteers do their job much better than hired employees. They don‘t count work time and all tasks are surmountable for them. Could you imagine someone who would sacrifice his/her money reward for the company? Volunteers have done this for many times," said Saulius with pride.

"It is a big challenge for people to work 12 days, 5 of them at the championships.Usually competitions lasted for 2 days. I couldn‘t imagine any top rank competition without volunteers‘ hard work".