WEYBURN – The community of Weyburn took to heart the theme of ‘Fall in Love with Communithon’ as the event far exceeded the organizers’ set goal of $82,023 on Friday night, hitting six figures with $100,168 raised as they went off the air.
With the unveiling of the final tally, the telethon audience was told this included an anonymous donation of $5,000 to help send it over the top for the 10 community agencies that receive funding from the event.
Communithon chair Lynda Rideout said organizers were blown away by the support of the community once again, and noted that final figure will go even higher as a number of donors pledged to send in their donations afterward.
The day began at 8 a.m. with the opening ceremonies, including the Communithon poem by Jean Fahlman and singing by the RISE Choir from the Weyburn Comprehensive Choir.
School groups filled the schedule for the morning and first half of the afternoon, then community groups, choirs, dancers and other performers entertained on the stage until the telecast ended.
Some of the highlights, other than the school groups, included the Monster Mash costume dance, and the Minute to Win it contest featuring the Weyburn Comp Eagles football team and their coaches. The coaches won the challenge, and were able to pie four of their football players with whipped cream.
Another highlight was a video with Kathryn Groshong made with some of the Communithon Ambassadors, including singing a song that she wrote.
The Ambassadors were a constant presence through the day, helping update the tally at intervals, and assisting with groups as they came in, or doing interviews with children after they performed.
Four of the Ambassador girls took part in a round-table discussion at the end of the day, and representatives of all the agencies were on hand for the revealing of the final tally.
Rideout pointed out that the Ambassadors squad added a lot of spark and life to the day-long telethon this year, and visited all of the schools as well as business sponsors and other events, encouraging people throughout the community to support Communithon.
The following are the community agencies supported by the Communithon funds: Southeast Advocates for Employment; Big Brothers Big Sisters of Weyburn; Envision Counselling & Support Centre Inc.; Community Low Income Center Weyburn; Inclusion Weyburn; Weyburn Care-A-Van Society; CMHA Weyburn; Spinal Cord Injury Saskatchewan Inc.; Weyburn Youth Center, and CNIB.
