The Olympic and Paralympic volunteer applicant pool has reached 730,000, reports the volunteer department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).

The city volunteer program applicant pool has already surpassed 650,000.

Liu Jian, director of BOCOG's volunteer department, explained that since the Beijing Olympic volunteer program launched in June 2006, it has branched into six volunteer working projects under the theme "Smile Beijing", namely, the "Towards Olympics" Voluntary Service Project, the BOCOG Pre-Games Volunteer Project, the Games-time Volunteer Project, the City Volunteer Project, the Social Volunteer Project, and the Olympic Volunteer Work Legacy Transformation Project.

The Olympic volunteer work has benefited from the active participation and enthusiastic support of various sectors of society.

And during the Good Luck Beijing sport events, approximately 30,000 volunteers took part in games-time and city volunteer services.

(BOCOG November 15, 2007)