The biggest fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Sarnia-Lambton is back this year.
The Show and Sale is scheduled to take place on Saturday, November 13 from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., and Sunday, November 14 from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m.
Executive Director Kaylen Burgess said the event has 75 vendors lined up from Sarnia and the surrounding Lambton county area.
"There's everything from stained glass, to Christmas greens, to jewellery, pretty much anything you can expect to see there every year is back," she said.
Although this would have been the event's 49th year, Burgess said it's technically the 48th Show and Sale since last year's fundraising event was cancelled due to the pandemic.
"Everyone was excited to come back and support the agency and get back out and find some normalcy," said Burgess. "We're really looking forward to it being a great event and we have to bring it back, it's our biggest event. It brings a lot of money in for the agency so we're really happy to have it back this year."
Admission is $7 and money raised will stay within the community to support youth mentoring programs. The last time the Show and Sale was held in 2019, Burgess said it generated about $60,000 for the non-profit organization.
"That was probably the best year we've ever had," she said. "We're going into this very optimistic but at the same time we're realistic with the goals that we've set so I think we'd be very happy to bring in $45,000 for this event because we have had to scale back and cut back on a few things. If we could bring in the $45,000 that would be a tremendous success."
Burgess said COVID-19 public health measures will be observed throughout the weekend.
"When we started planning the event, we had to configure the floor plan to make sense to follow all the COVID restrictions," she said. "Aisles are bigger, there's not going to be as many people in at a time that we're used to so we're counting numbers going in, [it's] going to be capped at a certain amount, and all face coverings are required, and social distancing."
The Show and Sale will take place at the old Teppermans location at Lambton Mall.
This year's event was again sponsored by Catherine Wilde and Fleck Law.