What a weekend.
As famlies poured into and out of Affinity Place for Santa’s Breakfast With the Bruins it seemed like most every person in the Estevan area had been in and out of the building several times for St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation Festival of Trees weekend. Organizers are still crunching the numbers for how much money was raised this year for the even but there was no shortage of activities available for those young and not as young.
“It’s incredible the amount of different things and going from one event to the next,” said foundation executive director Travis Frank. “These events are set up a little bit differently for different groups of people so you have to change mindsets all the time but it’s a blast. And to know that as soon as you’re done one, you get to go to the next and that’s even bigger and more fun.”
The weekend started off to the public with the senior’s tea at Affinity Place with a band Caragana Ramblers Friday afternoon.
“It was fantastic and we had 30 tables all full of wonderful people in our community, as I like to call it the more experienced people in our community got to come out and enjoy some great entertainment,” said Frank. “It’s just a good, fun event that’s mostly low key with people getting to just see each other, some they haven’t seen in awhile.”
Friday night was the first time they ran Candy Cane Lane, which was a dessert-themed evening that also included a performance from local musician Chris Henderson.
“We wanted to kind of hit that 20-40 year old demographic with a lot of people that couldn’t make it to the gala dinner,” Frank said. “We wanted to put something on that would really attract some of them and that really worked out well.”
Frank said there were about 500 people through the door at Candy Cane Lane, there to see the Henderson show.
“Lots of different desserts, which was really really popular and everybody loved trying different things, and some new drinks,” Frank said. “Only positive responses.”
The gala dinner was 76 full tables there for the food, the auction and a performance by Spenny and the Jets featuring local musical Spencer Lafrentz.
“We just want to get as many people as we can in because it’s such a great event,” said Frank.
The trees themselves raised thousands of dollars. They were decorated by Tara Daoust, Rene Goulet and a crew of helpers and once they were hitting the auction block, there was a bit of a difference this year in that each tree was designated to help a certain department or cause.
“Last year we had one tree designated to chemotherapy and that went for far more than our trees usually do, and we thought ‘Let’s build on that again and say every tree goes to a specific department’,” Frank said. “You’re not just bidding on it for the beauty of the tree but you’re also bidding on it because you know it’s going somewhere important to you.”
There were 10 trees up for auction, with several of them going for several thousand dollars.
There was $72,000 raised in the live auction of mostly trips and bigger ticket items, including an astounding $35,000 for a trip to Ireland.
“That’s the biggest one we’ve ever done by far and thanks to our sponsors we’re able to make that happen and all of the trips that we’re auctioning off is very little cost thanks to our sponsors,” said Frank.
The food for the gala dinner was done by Little Taste of Heaven Catering this year.
“Again, we wanted to go to a local buiness, which along with our theme, we wanted this to be Christmas on the Prairies,” Frank said. “That meant making sure we focused on Saskatchewan-based businesses.”
