The annual Creighton Lodge gala will be occurring April 20 and just like the previous editions, those in attendance can look forward to another four-course meal.
Shelly Veroba, who co-manages Creighton Lodge alongside Judy Pratt, said that tickets have already sold out and at $100 a ticket, the lodge is looking forward to using the money to resurface their parking lots, which will be occurring this summer.
“We will be holding the gala in the Beefeater Plaza. We can hold about 216 people and we might go up to 224 if it is necessary. Every year we hold the gala everyone gets very excited and we always sell out of tickets early,” said Veroba.
“There will also be a silent auction, the head and tails game, and in the past years we have had a diamond draw.”
In the past, there has been a vacation draw during the gala, but that won’t happening this year. Still, Veroba expects it is going to be another great night.
“We still feel the economy in Estevan is not at the point that we want to start asking people to spend $100 on a ticket and then even more money to allow a trip lottery to occur. We think that donor fatigue is a real thing,” said Veroba.
“For our draws in April we are not going to have pre-sold tickets, people who attend the gala are going to be the only ones eligible to win the prizes we have lined up for the evening,” she added.
Veroba noted that the lodge has always been successful and a great asset to the community because of the unique services it provides.
“Our fundraisers have normally been very successful because we are the only ones that provide seniors with a home away from home. We give seniors a comfortable place to live and let them have independence and we find they are very happy here,” said Veroba. “We are the stepping stone between living in your own home and living in a nursing home.”
There are other sources of funding that Creighton Lodge draws from to keep its doors open and keep providing quality care to its residents.
“We do not receive any provincial or federal funding. We are owned by five RM’s and we have been receiving funding from them since 2010 when they took over the Creighton Lodge.”
“We are also a United Way member agency so we are fortunate that United Way also supports us. Their funding normally goes towards increasing the quality of senior living at our facility with various programs and events that we hold.”
Creighton Lodge has six more capital projects that will need funding in the future and they are roof replacement, crawl space reinforcement, maintenance truck replacement, whirlpool tub upgrades, sidewalk replacement and additional electrical plugins in each suite for the residents.
Veroba is happy to have taken the largest capital project off her list, which is the resurfacing of their parking lots. She said that has been a pressing issue for a very long time and it needs to get done.
“The parking lots will be all asphalt and we will maintain our concrete pad for our yearly barbecues. The south parking lot might not get redone depending on how much it costs to redo our other parking lots,” said Veroba.
“We had drainage issues with our parking lots and nothing could be done until those issues were sorted out. We had one bad drainage issue where the water would pool at the back of our building and all those issues have been sorted out so we are ready to resurface our parking lots,” she added.
