By Greg Nikkel
The 2017 Communithon weekend was deemed a success by organizers, with hundreds of entertainers and volunteers enabling the United Way to raise over $94,000 as of closing on Saturday evening, with more funds yet to come.
The Friday portion of the fundraiser was a 15-hour telethon featuring school groups and choirs, and local talent filling out the schedule, while Saturday featured the first-ever Concert Jam, with seven different acts performing throughout the day at a licensed event, at the Cugnet Centre.
“Overall we had a lot of successes and improvements from previous years. We’re pretty much on par with where we ended last year,” said Sabrina Kraft, president of the Weyburn United Way and chair of Communithon.
“It’s very important to note that while Communithon is over, we still take donations throughout the year to help the member agencies. We’ll be taking donations until the end of December before we close the books on 2017,” she added.
The total board was at $95,234 as of the closing on Saturday evening, but this total does not include the funds raised by the silent auction, late donations or the proceeds from the Concert Jam.
A huge part of how well the Communithon event went was due to the many volunteers who came out to help, whether it was for an hour or two, or as in the case of some, for the entire day on Friday or on both days. In addition, there were hundreds of students from every Weyburn school who performed throughout the day Friday, plus many community talents through the evening.
“We wouldn’t have Communithon without our volunteers, and the entertainers and businesses who came together to support the event,” said Kraft.
Noting some comments were directed her way for her efforts in helping to organize the event, Kraft said, “I’m just the chair. I have a committee of 12 who were working just as hard to find their volunteers. They made my life easy, because each one took care of their area of responsibility.”
She paid tribute to the United Way’s Superheroes, Taylor Cameron and Landon Field, who both “went above and beyond to do anything and everything that was needed. They did announcing, helped out back stage and kept a positive attitude throughout the day. They were there for 15 hours on Friday and eight hours on Saturday, and they stayed positive. They were also there for the setup on Thursday evening.”
Many of the committee chairs were also there for setting up on Thursday, Kraft added.
One of her favourite parts of the day on Friday was seeing all the school groups perform throughout the day, and Kraft noted she asked members of the STARS Show Choir later how many of them had performed as young children. Well over half of the choir indicated they had sang at Communithon since they were in Grade 1.
Some of the notable talents from Weyburn can also trace their first performances to the Communithon stage, such as singer Tenille Arts and dancer Autumn Alexander.
Asked about the first-ever staging of the Concert Jam, Kraft noted that they had had about 40 tickets sold by the start of the jam on Saturday, but that number grew to between 100 and 150 by the end of the day.
“The music was great. Everybody I talked to said they really loved it, and hope we will host it again next year,” said Kraft, noting most of the music groups indicated they would come back to perform in Weyburn again for this event.
“We’re looking at making some changes to it, but we’re looking at offering this type of entertainment. We want to change things up and have something that brings people to Weyburn for our amazing event, and at the same time supporting our amazing organizations,” said Kraft.
She particularly enjoyed a spontaneous jam that was held at the end of the day, as members of five or six groups had stayed long enough to jam together on stage, with people getting up to dance in front of the stage.
The United Way board will go over how Communithon went, along with making allocations, at meetings in November and December, and the annual meeting will be held in April. The board will be looking for new members, with possibly six vacancies needing to be filled.
Kraft said if anyone is interested in helping out with the board can contact herself, Laura Morrissette or Marlo Pritchard for more information.
