Volunteers make the town go ’round, which is why the community takes the time during National Volunteer Week, April 10-16, to recognize the volunteers and everything they contribute.
“Volunteers are crucially important. They make a lot of the services we offer possible. They are what makes our services work,” said Christina Boese, communications co-ordinator for Volunteer Lethbridge.
While she does not know the exact number of volunteers there are in Lethbridge, she knows close to 100 organizations work with Volunteer Lethbridge, and all of them need volunteers.
“Over 52 per cent of Albertans volunteer and there are 12.5-million volunteers in Canada,” she said.
The volunteer opportunities vary.
“Everything from working with children to working with animals. There is working with computers and technology and working in hospitals, working in seniors’ homes. Anything you can think of, we can pretty much offer you a volunteer opportunity,” she continued.
Annabree Fairweather, volunteer co-ordinator for the Interfaith Food Bank Society, says volunteers are the “lifeblood of our organization.”
“If we didn’t have them,” she said, “we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

You don’t have to leave the city to find a record label. There are at least four of them, right here, all catering to different styles of music.
   While some of them are based around studios, others are groups of friends who hang around and play together, sometimes even sharing band members.
The latest one to join the list, Esper Records, is not so much a record company as a musicians’ collective. Jon Martin of the New Weather Machine and Jesse Northey from Jesse Northey and the Dandelions formed the label to share their knowledge and trade tips about all aspects of the music business from gigs to recording to promotions. They met through the University of Lethbridge’s music program.
“We realized we were doing a lot of the same things,” said Martin of the label.
He added Leigh Doerksen and his duo Church are the only other band on the label other than their own bands.
“We thought it would be more effective and efficient if we had a brand of our own,” he continued.
For example, they can cut costs by mailing out CDs to radio stations and media together rather than on their own and by booking shows together, which helps as Martin and Northey play in each other’s bands.
“We’re all benefitting from sharing our knowledge,” Northey said, adding that can stop the other members of this ‘artistic collective’ from making similar the same mistakes.
“It’s so they don’t have to start from scratch.”

Lethbridge may not be a filmmaking mecca yet, but there are a lot of people who call the city home who make their own professional movies.
   With the University of Lethbridge Film Festival coming up on March 31, there will be an excellent opportunity to see some of our budding filmmakers’ works.
Aaron Kurmey and Rambunxious Skeeter Productions are just one of them.

It is billed as “edutaining, infotaining, and just plain entertaining.”
   Local artists will explore the netherworld during the second annual Trap\door Artist Run Centre Psychic Fair & Artist Side Show March 19 at the Bowman Arts Centre.
“It will feature real psychics, pseudo-psychics and straight-out charlatans,” said Darcy Logan, one of the organizers who will also be running four booths.
One of the surprise attractions is an actual Fiji mermaid.
“They used to be a staple of travelling sideshows in the early 20th century,” Logan said. “People would pay their money expecting to see an actual mermaid.”
There will also be Ouija boards, mind reading, art alchemy, and even a cyclops.
All proceeds support the Trap\door artists’ collective.