All hands will be on deck at the 43rd annual Weyburn Communithon, airing live from the Weyburn Legion between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. this Friday. Those hands include dozens of volunteers from not only the eight community agencies involved, but also from community members, as well as entertainers into the hundreds including those participating in the school performances.
Tasha Collins has been taking part for 13 years on behalf of the Weyburn Branch of the CMHA, one of the organizations included in the annual telethon.
"I also I do a lot of volunteer hours with Communithon just because I love the event so much," she shared. "My volunteerism comes in with CMHA, within the committees, so that's why I allocate more hours and sit on a couple of other communities is because I want to be able to benefit other agencies in the community."
Collins emphasized helping out Communithon helps out eight organizations in one day.
"Through one commitment, whether that's a monetary commitment, whether that's volunteer hours, whether you're an entertainer, however you are involved in Communithon, you're literally supporting eight different agencies by doing so."
She shared on her first year at the event in 2011.
"I started in the middle of October and like two weeks in there, they're like, 'you have to go to this event', and I was like, 'what event?'. At this time they were still doing it in the Cafetorium at the Comp, so I went to this event and I was sitting there and I said, 'well, I don't know what I need to do', and they said, 'well, just be there in case anybody needs something'. So I mean I was asking, 'is there anything I can do?' and I had no idea."
"The next year, I can remember my mother-in-law helped with baking buns for all the volunteers, and she did some desserts for all of the volunteers, and then CMHA helped with the setup and the takedown, and I answered phones that year. Then your involvement becomes more and more, every single year, and you can change what that looks like. You can put more in, you can pull some back out," she explained. "I feel like that's why I like it. And I'm being honest to goodness truthful, I want to be involved and help out other places."
Read full stories about how each of the eight community agencies will benefit from the annual telethon: CMHA Weyburn Branch, Big Brothers Big Sisters Weyburn, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the Weyburn Care-A-Van Society, Southeast Advocates, Envision Counselling & Support Centre, Inclusion Weyburn, and Spinal Cord Injury Saskatchewan.
"I feel like I'm able to help them by being involved and so that's why I try and do more, and be more involved. If you can't be involved, or maybe you can't do a donation this year, but you can give a couple hours of volunteer time, that means something, too. So everything is a contribution and that's why I hope people recognize that there are all kinds of ways that you can contribute and support all of these member agencies through this one thing."
Follow the Weyburn Communithon on Facebook, and find out more on the Communithon website.