We’re one month into one of the longest federal election campaign periods in Canadian history.

For first-time candidates like Bardish Chagger, it’s been long enough to learn at least one important lesson.

“You want to engage with every single voter, and there’s so many voters – so you just can’t do it,” says Chagger, the Liberal candidate in Waterloo.

Chagger has worked on partisan campaigns before, but this is her first time running for federal office herself.

She says having a strong pool of volunteers to draw from was a key factor in helping her campaign get off the ground.

“The support of volunteers is what drives a campaign,” she said.

Stephen Woodworth, the Conservative incumbent in Kitchener Centre, also considers volunteers a key part of any successful campaign.

This year marks his fourth run for federal office, and he says that he’s finding it easier to recruit volunteers each time – although he admits that his incumbency might play a part in that.

He says that anyone looking from the outside might not realize just how much time and effort goes into a campaign.

“I’m not sure that these young people really know (how much work it is),” he said.

“The days are all 10, 12 hours long – and that’s at least six days a week.”

Even working those hours, candidates may find themselves declining invitations or not accomplishing as much as they’d hoped to in a given day.

Susan Cadell, who is running against Woodworth under the NDP banner, says that her goal is to show up to as many things as possible.

“There’s many, many different events, and we’re trying to get a presence at all of them,” she said.

Anyone looking to run in the election has until 2 p.m. on Sept. 28 to officially declare their candidacy.

The only requirements to run are being a Canadian citizen, being at least 18 years old, gathering 100 signatures of support, appointing an official agent and providing a $1,000 deposit to Elections Canada.