TORRINGTON – WYO Help hosted a comedy show and auction on Saturday in the Eastern Wyoming College auditorium to raise funds for several projects to combat poverty.
The night began with guests bidding on various items from gift cards to a custom rocking lawn chair.
As the auction ended, guests filed into the auditorium for the WYO LAFFS show featuring “Poor Don” Haines and the hunting comedian Daren Bulow. Before the show began, WYO Help Executive Director Kyle Borger thanked everyone for coming and explained what it means to be a community action agency.
“It’s essentially a non-profit that works on behalf of its community,” Borger said. “The things that we do are based on the things you tell us we should be doing.
Borger said the main goal is to not only help people in poverty but also to break the cycle and stay above the poverty line.
Since poverty is such a broad topic, WYO Help’s support ranges from individual help such as assistance to purchase educational materials for school to more community-based projects such as the food pantry of the new youth alternatives program.
The show started with Haines who appealed to the audience with stories about his life with three kids and gave examples of why he goes by “Poor Don” such as getting cancer on his 41st birthday and getting dumped at the prom.
Haines also featured plenty of jokes about his multitude of tattoos and how he often gets negative comments about them.
After a few dad jokes, Haines ended his routine by removing his shirt to show all of his tattoos and “dad bod” then left the audience with a dance.
Bulow’s jokes centered around his 50-plus years of hunting and fishing and his wild encounters with animals from crow calling with a police officer to an unfortunate encounter with a skunk.
Bulow also talked about being a crazy dog person and how it had gotten him in trouble with his ex-fiancé. It’s a story which Bulow said many male audience members tell him they relate too.
The hunting and fishing comedian talked about his realized dreams of hunting in the highest peaks of Colorado and his new reality of craft fairs with his wife.
Comedy shows for non-profits is nothing new for Bulow and Haines as they have been doing it for two years now as WYO LAFFS. The family friendly entertainment fit with the community aspect of WYO Help and the type of fundraising they hope to continue to support those in need.
