After being awake for 33 consecutive hours, Communithon co-chairman Jerry Ponto could rest easy knowing the group had raised close to $94,000 for the member agencies of the Weyburn and District United Way.

"I'm a little bit rested now," Ponto joked Sunday.

Community contributions poured in from Friday morning to late Saturday afternoon when the telethon, broadcast live on Cable Weyburn, finally ended with a total of $93,175. However, the donations didn't stop there, with a final total estimated at close to $94,000.

Although the amount fell short of their $107,899 goal, Ponto was still calling Communithon a major success.

"There will be a lot of good done throughout the community with that money," Ponto said.

"Certainly we'd like to see more money, but we knew we had an aggressive goal, especially with the economy the way it is in agriculture and earlier on in the oil industry," added Communithon co-chairman and Weyburn District United Way president Don Kraft.

The goal was based on an individual needs assessment of the United Way's 17 local member agencies. Each agency will still receive 90 per cent of their initial request.

A huge community effort was needed to raise the money, with a small army of volunteers taking pledges, helping with the production aspect of the event, acting as hosts and co-ordinating the entertainment.

"It's absolutely fantastic the countless hours the volunteers spent and the real quality people there. Probably over the course of the two days there were 200 volunteers not counting performers," Ponto said.

Along with the member agencies benefiting from the fund-raiser, groups like the Young Fellows Club of Weyburn, the Weyburn Lion's Club and the Kinsmen were hard at work over the two days.

Then there were the performers - around 1,500 of them, according to Ponto's best guess, with about 800 school children performing Friday alone. Audience members watched singers, musicians, dancers, choirs, baton twirlers, reciters of poetry and countless other acts.

"The entertainment was extremely well co-ordinated. We were able to appeal to just about all members of the community, young and old alike. From my point of view everybody really enjoyed it," Ponto said.

"The entertainment was good. We certainly get an opportunity each year to find out how much quality we have in our community," Kraft added.

Broadcasting that entertainment out of the Legion Hall and into the larger community for 33 hours straight was a team from Cable Weyburn, who used local volunteers to aid with production.

In total there were six cameras tied into a mobile production truck parked outside - three in studio, one handheld backstage, one statuesque shot of the hosts, plus a sky cam in the back of the hall for a wide shot. The audio element included a 24-channel mixer with various microphones and audio sources.

The mobile production truck came down from Cable Regina. Cable Weyburn's Brent Allin said the rolling studio has been a big benefit.

"In the past we had to rip the control room apart, and bring it down to the Legion," Allin said.

"We heard a lot of positive comments about the production this year," said Kraft. "It was very professionally done and a lot of the credit has to go to Cable Weyburn."

Beyond the action at the Legion Hall, special fund-raising projects were organized by local businesses and groups over the past month to raise money for Communithon, including a Fire Fighters Pancake Breakfast, office chair relay race between the banks, chocolate sales by Roy Chuckry, a perogy meal put on by the Knights of Columbus, and many others.