Big Brothers Big Sisters of Sarnia-Lambton Spring Show and Sale. Image courtesy of sarnia.bigbrothersbigsisters.caBig Brothers Big Sisters of Sarnia-Lambton Spring Show and Sale. Image courtesy of sarnia.bigbrothersbigsisters.ca
Sarnia

Spring show and sale this weekend

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Sarnia-Lambton is hosting its 2nd annual Spring Show and Sale Saturday, April 30.

Executive Director Kaylen Burgess said the event is being held Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the new gymnasium at Lambton College.

"It's an absolutely beautiful venue for this event," said Burgess. "It's all on one level, it's clean, it's new and it's really an exciting spot for us to be able to showcase these vendors."

The spring event was very successful in 2019, but it has been sidelined since due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Burgess said they've secured 75 vendors for Saturday.

"A lot of our fall vendors are specific to that time of year, but we do have a ton of returning vendors that people are used to seeing and we have a lot of new ones as well. Ones that are more focused on this time of year and this season, getting into spring."

She said a variety of items will be for sale.

"We've got everything from woodworking, to clothing, to art, to jewellery. Things for your pets, your kids, Mothers Day gifts. We have Personal Touch (Eatery and Catering) and Sitara (Indian Cuisine) attending with food for the event. We've tried to add a couple of things to make it different this year that we don't typically do in the fall."

Admission is $7 and children ages 12 and under are free.

Burgess said all of the money raised supports their youth mentoring programs.

"We are at our highest matching numbers for one-to-one matches in the community right now. We currently have 125 matches in the one-to-one program, and we're back in the schools providing programming. Our numbers are really strong, despite the pandemic, and our volunteers continue to step up and volunteer for both group mentoring programs and individually."

While the numbers are good, Burgess said the need for the programs has increased and over 60 children are currently waiting for matches.

"We are bringing in a lot of kids on the waiting list. So, every time one comes off it seems like we get two or three back on. So, there is definitely a need for lots of volunteers in the community."

Burgess said they successfully matched 25 kids in the county program over the past 18 months, which hasn't really been done before.

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