This Thursday, Memorial Park will once again be the place to be as Magic 103, AM1190, Country 106.7, DiscoverWeyburn, and the City of Weyburn team up for another Great Plains Taste of Summer Charity BBQ!
This week, the proceeds from the BBQ will be going to the Royal Canadian Legion Weyburn Branch 47.
“The Legion is an advocacy group and supporter of not only veterans from service personnel but also city police, RCMP, and firefighters,” said Executive Committee Member Jerry Ponto. “We provide a support organization for those people.”
While many think of the Legion and think only of Remembrance Day, Ponto noted that it’s much more than just Remembrance Day services and they have evolved quite a bit over the years.
“We certainly have,” he said. “We still provide support to those individuals (Veterans). But we also do things like providing scholarships to youth, a number of different things, and programs of that sort as well. By coincidence, right now, we’re busy preparing meals for a bunch of evacuees who were forced out of their homes in the north and are now staying in our hotels. So we’re trying to help feed those individuals as well.”
Along with the lounge and the programs, Ponto also noted that they have the Legion Hall upstairs, which hosts a number of events throughout the year, including Communithon.
“Certainly our upstairs hall is available for rent for many different functions, weddings, Christmas parties, anything you like.”
He added that they are a non-profit organization and they have two different funds that they operate.
“We have our poppy fund,” he stated. “So any of the donations throughout Remembrance Day or any donation to the poppy fund, those funds are used to support veterans. We provide a lot of different programs for the veterans. We provide gifts to them at Christmas time, and a number of different things, just so they still feel the appreciation of the public at large. Any other donations that we get go into a separate fund, and they go to help with the day-to-day operations and keep the doors open here at the Legion.”
That fund is where the proceeds from our Taste of Summer BBQ will be going. The BBQ is scheduled for Thursday, July 17th, from 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. at Memorial Park, next to City Hall, a space that The Legion helped develop.
Ponto added that the Legion itself will be doing something special for our BBQ day.
“We’re on our summertime hours right now, so Thursday we would normally be closed,” he said. “But, because of your generosity and that of the sponsors involved, we’re actually going to have the branch open from 11:30 until 5:00 tomorrow. So people who are down supporting the BBQ are encouraged to come across the street, come into the Legion, and take a look around. See what the Legion has to offer. You may discover some things that you weren’t aware of.”
The BBQ will be a hot dog lunch with a hot dog, chips, and a drink for $3, and all proceeds will go directly the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 47 at the end of the event.