The fifth annual B&T Estevan Gun Show will be held on March 24 and 25 at the Wylie-Mitchell Building, and the organizers of the show, Lionel Bender and Kevin Thompson, said they hope the show is going to have a great turnout.
The St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation has been named the beneficiary of the proceeds from the gun show. Bender said last year the show was able to raise $9,000 and it was donated to the new Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital Foundation of Saskatchewan.
“This year we are just trying to keep our donations local, so we thought the hospital might be a good place to send the money from our show this year,” said Thompson.
The gun show will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on March 24 and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 25. Admission is $5 per person.
Bender noted that in recent years, he always receives a pile of vendor applications and wishes he could rent out Affinity Place due to the amount of exhibitors who want to come to Estevan.
“We always have a lot of people that want to come to the city and participate and be a part of the gun show, but we need more room to fit everybody,” said Thompson.
All 94 tables for this year have been sold out.
Donating money to community groups and charities has always been the direction the gun show has taken since its inception.
“The reason why it got started was, Kevin and I were sitting having coffee one day and we thought what can we do, there aren’t any gun dealers or anything in town, so we thought let’s put on a gun show,” said Bender.
“We went from there. We filled the hall the first year and ever since, the hall has been always full. Right from the start we always have ran with the idea of donating money from the show to community groups and charities,” he added.
The money from the first year of the show went to the Estevan Wildlife Federation, who were able to get a pistol range put in that allowed owners of restricted firearms a place to go for target practice.
The oil crash had a severe impact on the gun show and the money they were able bring in to donate to charities and community groups has been down since then, but Bender is optimistic for this year.
“The oil crash affected how much we received. Things have been going up slowly, the first two years were phenomenal because we were bringing in around $12,000 to $16,000 dollars and that has now changed,” said Bender.
“I want to continue running the gun show until I can’t anymore. I have no idea who might take my place, Kevin is nearly half my age, I suppose he will take over once I am unable to.”
Two vendors this year were unable to make it but Bender had no issues filling those positions. He also spoke well of the diverse selection of items that will be at the show.
“You are going to see custom knife makers, coin collectors, leather goods, moccasins, throwing axes. The variety this year is going to good and we also have a photographer this year, he takes pictures and sells them,” said Bender.
“We have two outfitters this year, one for northern Saskatchewan and for southwestern Saskatchewan and that is about it, I hope to get lots of people coming out to our show this year,” he added.
