The radio station announced Wednesday, Aug. 26 that Ross Payant Centennial Home and Prairie Villa Retirement Home in Assiniboia along with Coteau Range Manor in Avonlea were recipients of HP All-in-One PCs and Google Nest Hubs as part of an effort to help families connect with their senior relatives in the time of COVID-19.
“With social distancing being practiced, this can make it very difficult for some of our seniors to have contact with their family members and friends,” said Steve Huber, owner of Cat Country 98. “It does feel good to have that opportunity to give back to the community. It’s extreme sometimes when you think about social distancing over the last six months, but it’s obviously done for a reason. I feel so bad for these folks who can’t see their friends and family, it breaks my heart. So I hope this helps.”
Huber expects the Google Hub to be one of the most popular parts of the donation – operating much like their famous counterparts from Apple and Amazon, users simply have to call out a question or command and the Hub will attempt to answer the question or provide a service.
“They’re fun if you ever get a chance to play around with them,” he said. “You just ask ‘Hey Google, what’s the weather like’ and it’ll tell you, or ‘Google, what’s the latest news’ and it’ll read off the latest news stories. It’s fun.
“Sometimes older folks don’t know how to necessarily run computers, but if you can run it with your voice that’s not a bad thing. Can’t wait to hear the first one go ‘hey Google, play me some polka music!’,” Huber added with a laugh.
Cat Country 98 is one of the newest radio stations in Saskatchewan, having begun their broadcast schedule of modern country hits back on May 15, 2019 and officially opening as a radio station on May 31 of that year. They’re also the first radio station to broadcast out of Assiniboia, with their signal touching as far south as Montana, as far east as Weyburn, as far west as Val Marie as well as up to Moose Jaw and Regina areas.
The donations aren’t the first act of generosity for the station in these difficult times – in the past three months, Cat Country 98 has donated over $200,000 in advertising to help businesses market their products and services.
For more information on the station and to check out their broadcast, be sure to visit www.myassiniboia.ca.
