ESTEVAN - The St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation has kicked off its Festival of Trees, 2021 edition, with their Ultimate Sweepstakes Raffle with over $20,000 in prizes to be won.
And the headquarters are to be set up at the Estevan Market Mall next Monday. Christmas spirit will be spread across the community through different events and activities organized by the foundation, in an effort to bring the community together, while also raising some funds for the hospital’s needs.
Breanne Van De Woestyne, St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation’s executive director, said preparations for the festival are coming along really well.
"We're so excited to finally open the doors at the Estevan Market Mall to offer our Christmas headquarters and just have a different spin on our annual Festival of Trees. There's going to be something for everyone, and we're excited about how the community is coming together and backing us up on our event. We can't wait to see how successful we can be," Van De Woestyne said.
Christmas headquarters will be set up from Nov. 15-25 in the west part of the Estevan Market Mall, where the Estevan Farmers Market hosted their indoor winter and spring sales.
"It's a huge space that we're going to transform into a Christmas Wonderland, basically having all of our trees set up, all of our lights and Christmas decorations. But it also gives us an opportunity to still have an in-person aspect to our events. So, we'll have all of our raffle prizes, all of our auction prizes, all of our kids' kits pick-up locations as well as our hot cocoa packages. It just gives us a real opportunity to still be out in the community, to celebrate the Christmas season and to raise funds for our hospital," Van De Woestyne said.
At the headquarters, visitors will have an opportunity to check out all prizes and items available through raffle and the online auction, and to purchase tickets. Someone at the location will be able to help with bidding on items through an online auction if needed.
The registration for kids' kits and hot cocoa packages is now open. They are to be picked up at the headquarters and Van De Woestyne said there will be a few extras available for purchase during the event, in case someone forgets to order theirs in advance.
The auction will run from Nov. 15-24.
The board set out the plans for the event back in September, incorporating the pandemic reality into their program for this Christmas season. They wanted to make sure that everyone can be safe, but also have a great start to the holidays.
"We as a board of directors and staff thought it would be best to be a little different this year again, but again, be creative in how we offer this event. And so, we made a plan back in September of how we were going to do things that would still be safe and still be a community kickoff to Christmas," Van De Woestyne said.
The hospital foundation has over $400,000 in medical equipment for its wish list, along with the new outpatient care centre. Money raised through the festival will help offset some of the capital expenses.
"We have some major upgrades going on in the emergency room with vital signs monitors and there's always different pieces of equipment throughout the hospital. We will be deciding officially what we will be spending the money on at our board meeting," Van De Woestyne said.
The Festival of Trees has been a major fundraiser for the St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation since 2013, featuring a variety of holiday festivities. The festival has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the purchasing of new medical equipment at St. Joseph's Hospital.
"I just want to say thank you to our community, all of our donors and business that support this event. We're so lucky to still have the support that we have each and every year, even though we've had to really switch things up. And just to see the funds that we're still able to raise for our hospital, even though we aren't having our gala and our Santa's breakfast like we usually do. We're very, very grateful for it, and we just can't wait to be able to offer something for our community."
"Come together as a community and support local health care," Van De Woestyne said.
Anyone interested in learning more about the Festival of Trees and to get the link to bid on an auction can go to www.festivaloftreesestavan.com.
