Helping hospitals | Twinkling lights, glimmering tinsel and cherry coloured holly serve as the backdrop to a lavish gala and fundraiser for the Meadow Lake Hospital Foundation
MEADOW LAKE, Sask. — This year’s Festival of Trees, held the last weekend in November, raised $65,000 for a birthing bed and a mobile respirator for patients transported in aircraft and ambulances.
Sally Carlson, Donna Ritco and Jane Pike, who are among the volunteer organizers of the event, need only to look to their own health-care experiences to see the need to maintain services, resources, staff and equipment for a wooded region three hours northwest of Saskatoon.
“You only have to take one trip back from Saskatoon after you’ve had surgery to really not want to do that anynmore than you have to,” said Carlson.
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She said the goal is to sustain as many hospital services and specialists in the city of 5,000 as possible.
The 30 bed hospital provides a range of acute care and obstetrics, conducts surgeries and houses an emergency department. Eleven doctors practise in Meadow Lake.
Ritco’s husband underwent an exam not long after the festival raised money to buy colonoscopy equipment and learned he had a tumour.
“It saved his life,” she said.
Pike, a retired nurse, said the annual fundraiser involves the city and surrounding region.
“”It gives us a chance to take ownership of the direction of health-care services and be a part of the fundraising,” she said.
It’s a good fit with her affection for Christmas and decorating. She is one of the many who have bought and decorated trees for the festival in the past.
Planning the event, which was launched in 2005, begins early each year with purchases of trees and decorations from local businesses. Volunteers book the civic centre, mail letters soliciting sponsorship from businesses and work with local service clubs. Clubs, businesses and individuals decorate the trees for auction.
Ritco said she committed to three years when she started but has stayed on for a decade.
“You feel good at the end of the night. It’s incredible and it keeps me going for the entire year. We’ve been at it so long, it kind of does itself.”
Volunteers also prepare about 40 items for the silent auction, which range from woodworking to stained glass.
The hospital foundation creates its Christmas wish list of items needed to help the festival set fundraising targets.
Carlson said the event is a Christmas tradition that local people look forward to attending each year.
Items are auctioned off by Richie Lalonde of Lalonde Auctioneering, who volunteers his time.
He said trees and wreaths sell for $500 to $7,000, with friendly bidding wars common between local businesses, doctors and residents.
Lalonde got involved to help out his community.
“It’s going to a good cause, coming back to the hospital. It’s local, everybody needs to use it,” he said.
