Marty and Shannon Yager (Left and Center) hand their more than $300,000 cheque to the HumboldtStrong Community Foundation. (Facebook/Spotlight Sport and Corporate Wear).

By Mat Barrett

In The Spotlight

Humboldt business nominated for pair of ABEX Awards

Aug 22, 2019 | 3:00 PM

The nominees have been announced for the 2019 ABEX Awards that take place in Saskatoon in October, and a northeast business is up for two awards.

Spotlight Sport and Corporate Wear in Humboldt has been nominated for the Community Involvement Award, as well as the Marketing Award. Owner/Operator Mike Yager said they’re honoured to be in the conversation for the awards.

“We’re very grateful and a little excited of course,” Yager said. “It’s a sit on the edge of your seat kind of thing and very grateful that we got to this stage to sit amongst all of the excellent businesses that are being recognized that night.”

It’s not the first time they’ve been nominated either as they attended the awards in 2015 and 2017.

When it comes to community involvement, Yager said they rely on their local customer’s big time.

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“If you expect to survive because of the community supporting you,” he said. “You also have to support the community back.”

Yager has served on many boards through his time in business and he said they’ve also tried to support many local community groups.

A big reason for their nomination this year in both categories was the fundraising efforts for the Humboldt Broncos families after the devastating crash on April 6, 2017. Spotlight started a t-shirt campaign to help raise funds and it took off.

“We had kind of set a goal to raise $10,000 to support those families after that accident,” Yager told northeastNOW. “And we ended up submitting a cheque for over $300,000. What started off as something we thought would last a couple of days, ended up lasting six or eight weeks in order to finalize all of the orders that came in from around the world.”

The campaign also helped in getting them nominated in the marketing category. In that category, ABEX looks for a certain marketing campaign from the nominees. For Spotlight, Yager said it started off as a Facebook post that went viral.

While having not won an ABEX award in 2015 and 2017 when they were there, Yager added that they aren’t going into it with big expectations of winning.

“We just want to enjoy the night and relish in the fact that we are among the best of the best in Saskatchewan,” he said.

But, Yager said it would be amazing if they were able to win this year, and they would feel like they’ve accomplished something big.

“It would top off a very busy couple of years that we’ve had,” Yager said. “It’s been an amazing roller coaster with everything we have done supporting the Humboldt Bronco families and the team now with supplying their product and merchandise for fans around the world.”

Yager thanked their customers, staff, and friends for their support over the years.

The ABEX Awards are in Saskatoon on Oct. 19, 2019 at TCU Place.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6