The Prairie Women on Snowmobiles (PWOS) came to Estevan for the first time on Friday night, and it was the last stop on their long journey that started in early February.
The PWOS Mission 2018 was a six-day trip, with a kickoff in Regina on Feb. 3, and the ride starting in Regina Beach on Feb. 4. That journey took them though a great number of small towns and cities.
Mission 2018 received $61,683 in donations for the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency and $35,708 for the Canadian Cancer Society. All together they concluded their 2018 mission with a total of $97,499 and all the Prairie Women were very happy with those results.
The Estevan Snowmobile Club hosted the PWOS and donated $2,500 to the organization, and the PWOS were very grateful for such a generous donation from a non-profit group such as the snowmobile club.
“Thank you everyone. This entire province is awesome,” said PWOS president Kelly Kim Rea after announcing the official donation numbers.
The event on Friday night was a supper and a cabaret, with Method to Madness playing live music after the banquet was over.
Before the food was out on the tables, there were some speeches given by most of the Prairie Women, who shared their story with the audience about their encounters with cancer. Each story included a tale of brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers and many other family members dying from cancer and how hard it was to overcome that loss once their loved one had died.
Some of the stories were more personal in regards to the Prairie Women themselves going into detail about how hard it was for them to beat their battles with breast cancer.
The local snowmobile club paid for the hotel rooms for the Prairie Women to stay in while they were in Estevan, and they also covered the cost of the dance tickets, which were for the live music.
President of the Estevan Snowmobile Club Dave Heier noted that if you put all the costs together that his club covered, plus the $2,500 donation the amount would be closer to $5,000.
Heier has been a part of the snowmobile club since 2003 and he said he just loves to go snowmobiling, and getting the PWOS out to Estevan worked out extremely well.
“We all did a great job, the girls did a great job as well. Everything has just turned out awesome, we are having a good time and I promised them a good party and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves,” said Heier.
“It’s not normal for a non-profit to give to a non-profit but we thought it was worth because the Prairie Women do such an amazing job for a good cause. I think we have all been touched by cancer, or known somebody that had to deal with cancer and it’s been a great night.”
The live music was a great thing to have during the night. After the banquet, the tables from the middle of the room were removed so that the banquet hall could convert into a dance floor.
Heier and Rea did spend some time dancing together and those who came to the event were very supportive the Prairie Women and their crew members decided to finish their tour in Estevan.
There was a silent action that featured everything from bikes to jackets at the banquet. A large amount of businesses in the Estevan area donated their own products to help raise money to fight breast cancer.
The Prairie Women are undecided at this time of where they will be heading for 2019 but president Kelly Rea said she was impressed with the Estevan community and the southeast corner has a whole in how generous they were in helping the Prairie Women continue their fight against breast cancer.
Mission 2018 saw the PWOS stop in many southeast communities for coffee break events and lunches. A lunch stop was held in Midale earlier in the day on Friday. (See this week’s edition of Lifestyles for more on the visit to Midale).
Other stops in the southeast included Lampman and Torquay.
When a lack of snow on the ground prevented the PWOS from riding their sleds from community to community, the riders packed up their snowmobiles and travelled via trucks to the next stop.
