WEYBURN – Anyone who has a young family, or who has raised a family in Weyburn or in the immediate area, knows quite well how valuable a resource the Family Place is.
This resource centre has provided a wide range of supports and programs for families, ranging from drop-in play areas to parenting programs, a clothes closet to help out families who are in need, and Mini-Go preschool program.
These are just a few of the benefits you can find at the Family Place, and there are many more that I could mention.
My own children are grown adults, but as young children I took them to the Family Place back when they were located at Souris Valley (now that dates me, doesn’t it?).
I’ve also gone to several Festival of Trees events over the years, and they’ve always been great fundraisers for the Family Place.
Thus it was great to hear the plans they are working on in their partnership with the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division, to develop an expanded family resource centre using the former building of the Dance Zone on McLelland Street, just off Fifth Avenue North.
The province has contributed funds for this, and Holy Family is partnering with their resources as a school division, with the work underway to renovate and add more space for the expanded new programs.
For these and many other reasons, it is crucial that the Weyburn area support the Festival of Trees, with the auction of decorated Christmas trees and of dozens of silent auction items, on display now at Great Plains Ford.
It’s wonderful to see the displays in person once again, not to mention the large array of donated items for the silent auction. I think they’ve missed the boat on making the auctions online, however, particularly for the trees.
It sort of makes sense to have the silent auction online, but for the tree auction, you cannot replace the atmosphere and the live bidding back and forth by putting it online. Not only that, people have been really missing in-person events in the last couple of years, and it would’ve been really nice to have that event back.
At any rate, the tree auction needs your support, and I would urge anyone or any business that can afford it to put in a generous bid or two.
