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Video: Christmas came to Estevan with the record Festival of Trees

St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation’s (SJHF) seventh annual Festival of Trees once again proved to be a big success with record support. Thousands of people attended various events put together and sponsored by Estevan businesses and organizations.
festival of trees
Johner Brothers & Brad Johner & Johner Boys provided entertainment during the Festival of Tree Gala Dinner on Saturday. Photo by Anastasiia Bykhovskaia

St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation’s (SJHF) seventh annual Festival of Trees once again proved to be a big success with record support. Thousands of people attended various events put together and sponsored by Estevan businesses and organizations.

Everyone could find something to do the past weekend, as Estevan soaked the Christmas spirit in all while raising money for the SJHF. 

“We are very, very happy with how Festival of Trees went this year. We brought a lot of new festivities and had some of the old favourites. It was a really great weekend,” said SJHF executive director Breanne Van de Woestyne.

The Christmas festivities started off with the Ultimate Family Movie Night on Friday. Parents and children watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas in Whoville on the big screen with concessions, hot chocolate and prizes.

Saturday morning had hundreds of Estevanites and visitors out at the Affinity place for the Christmas Tea Party. The traditional event this year was open to both seniors and their family members. Participants could take a look at the trees, enjoy hot beverages and snacks.

This also was the first time when the hospital foundation partnered with the Estevan Kinettes Club for their annual Christmas Marketplace. So right after the tea party, many people headed over to the Wyllie-Mitchell Building and the Estevan Exhibition Hall to start on their Christmas shopping.

Christmas spirit completely took over Affinity Place Saturday night, as SJHF invited the community to come out and kick off the holiday season at the Festival of Trees Gala Dinner.

The gala celebrated the generosity of the people from southeast Saskatchewan as they continued to give back, thus allowing the hospital foundation to continually improve healthcare in the community. Don Kindopp, who is the board chair for St. Joseph’s Hospital, addressed the guests at the gala.

“On behalf of some 280 staff members that deliver health services to the community, we thank those of you in attendance here tonight. Our health system team is blessed to live and work in this community, which is undoubtedly is the most generous community in our country,” said Kindopp.

He named some improvements that became a reality with the help of money raised. The latest purchases included a $60,000 sterilizer, new hospital beds totalling at $250,000, a $100,000 upgrade of the maternity ward and the list goes on. 

“St. Joseph’s Hospital has a capital inventory of approximately $10 million, which must be kept up to date. With this in mind our plans for next year include the purchase of a ventilator for $40,000, ICU modern equipment for approximately $200,000 and a $100,000 upgrade to the new endoscopy unit,” said Kindopp.

The live auction was one of the main fund generators of the festival. The list of bid items included trips to San Francisco, Hawaii, New York and Ireland, a dream vacation, a painting by Michael Lonechild, a hot tub, an ultimate bar shed and many more exciting adventures and unique items. All pieces were donated by local sponsors, and the auction generated about $48,000.

The Christmas tree auction added almost $20,000 to the total. Ten beautiful Christmas trees found their new homes that night, with money from each sale going to designated hospital units and facilities.

The silent auction, 50-50, million-dollar tree and jewellery raffles and other activities added few more thousands to the total, raised during the gala.

Van de Woestyne said that this year about 80 per cent of weekend expenses were covered by sponsorship, which meant that part of the money from the gala table sales also went back to the hospital foundation. She noted that they had the record sponsorship throughout the history of the festival.

“That just says enough of how much support we really have from local businesses,” said Van de Woestyne, pointing out that every year they have at least $100,000 from the festival going towards hospital equipment.

Johner Brothers and Johner Boys provided great entertainment, and many guests hit the floor to enjoy dancing that night.

 

The Festival of Trees continued on Sunday with Santa’s Breakfast with the Bruins and Christmas Lane at Affinity Place. Over 2,000 people enjoyed pancakes and participated in various family activities.

Santa was on stage to listen to children’s Christmas wishes, while the Estevan Bruins were serving breakfast and entertaining guests. Christmas Lane this year had all kinds of activities from cookie decoration to a teddy bear hospital. Kids also could write a letter to Santa at the Post Office, decorate a miniature Christmas tree or get a colourful tattoo.

The weekend-long festival took over 200 volunteers and thousands of volunteer hours, but the final result was worth it. Many guests and participants agreed that it was wonderful to see the community come together, once again proving its strength and unity by providing support for a good cause despite the economic downturn.

“The community support wasn’t just this weekend. It’s been the last few months with sponsorship and people donating their time… It makes it even more special with how the economy is right now that we worry about too. We still hold such a major event and still fundraise a great amount of money to go into our hospital and to continue to reinvest those dollars back into our community,” said Van de Woestyne.

“The whole weekend itself went amazing… We could include more people. We wanted it to really focus on community and family... It was more a celebration than a fundraiser. We wanted it to be a lot of fun and a really great event to kick off Christmas. And I think we were able to succeed with that.”

“We just want to put out a huge thank you to the community on our sponsors and local businesses that helped us put this on. It’s not just our team that puts this on, it is the whole-community event, and without that support it would not be possible,” ended Van de Woestyne.  

The organizing committee was still adding up the numbers. The Mercury will have the totals as they become available.