The saying is correctly said that volunteers are the backbone of most communities, particularly small rural communities but also the larger urban ones, and with a busy season upcoming this summer in the Weyburn region, the availability of volunteers is going to be important and crucial once more.
One volunteer organization already has signified there is a lack of enough volunteers, and had to cancel an important fundraising event as a result. This ought not to be in a community of the size of Weyburn, when one accounts for the residents in the rural areas and the towns in the southeast region as well as in the city.
The Soup's On fundraiser, which exclusively raises funds for the Weyburn and District Hospital Foundation, had to cancel its June luncheon simply because the volunteers could not be found to run the fundraiser and get the food prepared for it. Organizers are hoping this was a momentary glitch, and when they need bodies in September to prepare for the next luncheon in October, they'll be there to help out.
In the meantime, a number of important community events are upcoming: the Rotary Club is holding a fundraising Lobsterfest and steak dinner on Saturday, June 16, from which funds will go to both the Hospital Foundation and the Triple C Centre, the new auditorium and convention centre under construction at the Weyburn Comp. Following this, there will be the Weyburn Ag Society's annual Fair at the city's fair grounds; Stoughton will have their annual Stoughton Daze; Creelman, Midale and Ogema will also all have their annual fair events, and then back in Weyburn the annual Wheat Festival will be held in August - and this is just a sampling, as the summer inevitably brings many community events to the fore.
Every single one of these events are important to the local community, and some (like Creelman's, for example) have been ongoing for over 100 years in this region and are a part of our heritage, with Ogema marking their centennial this summer.
And the all-important ingredient of every single one of these events are the volunteer; they are the ones who organize them, who take tickets, who man the food and refreshment booths, who ensure that the events are held at the right venues and everything goes off without a hitch. Think of how our collective quality of life would suffer if these important events had to be cancelled due to a lack of volunteers! Don't let this happen - volunteer and help out!
