One week left until Weyburn comes together for the Weyburn and District United Way Communithon!

The annual event will be at the Cugnet Centre and raises funds for 13 member agencies, including Envision Counselling and Support Centre.

"We are a trauma informed counselling and support agency," said Lynda Rideout. "We provide support to those in need in the Southeast. We have more than 40 employees with four office locations and overall we serve about 56,000 people in this area."

Lynda noted that in 2017, Envision completed a strategic plan to serve the area better and their main goal from that is to complete a needs assessment.

"Doing this will give us the opportunity to reflect on our current services, assess the community to see what services are required and identify any gaps in the community where our services could be beneficial in the future," she said. "So the future of our programming will be set following our needs assessment."

"In the meantime, we will continue to offer the quality services to the individuals in need who are victims of violence and abuse, those in crisis and individuals with relationship struggles," added Rideout.  "By partnering with the United Way, we are able to offer immediate support through an intake counselor here. Our counselor screens all referral phone calls for placement in our counselling programs, matching them with the appropriate program and counselor. And our intake counselor also takes walk in clients that come to our office in crisis because typically they would have to wait two or three weeks to see a counselor so this allows us to help them in the moment."

She noted that most of Envision's programming is currently at capacity, so having an intake offer makes a huge difference in how quickly they can offer support.

She also wanted Weyburn residents to really understand the impact the United Way has here in the Opportunity City.

"The Weyburn and District United Way continues to be a really vital part of the Weyburn community and at Envision we are so grateful for the commitment that we have from the Weyburn and District United Way," she said.  "The allocated monies that we receive remain in the Weyburn and surrounding area to support our local programming. Without this support we wouldn't be able to provide it."

Communithon runs October 19th.