ESTEVAN - The St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation is bringing their annual Festival of Trees back to an in-person format, and the fundraiser will mark its 10th edition this year.
The holiday festivities, inviting the community to start celebrating the Christmas season while raising funds for St. Joseph's Hospital, are slated for Nov. 26-27.
"We're just excited to get back with the community to celebrate and raise funds for the hospital. It feels like that little bit of a break. It's going to be nice to get back and celebrate in person with everybody," said foundation executive director Lori Gervais.
The festival is still in the preparation stages, but Gervais shared the first details of the city-wide celebration. This year they pushed the Festival of Trees from its regular weekend to a week later to accommodate for the Grey Cup in Regina.
The traditional gala will take place on Nov. 26 at Affinity Place, with entertainment, supper and live and silent auctions, with many great items to bid on. And Nov. 27 will once again be the Hometown Family Fun Day, which Gervais promised will bring some novelties.
"Our theme this year is Country Christmas, so the gala will be themed the Country Christmas. The next day, Sunday the 27th, that's our Hometown Family Fun Day, we've had that in the past and that's returning. It's going to be city-wide and bigger and better than ever. We've got lots of fun activities planned for kids of all ages. All that is free with a donation," Gervais said.
The Christmas Tea Party is also to make a return this year, but in a mixed format taking the best of pre-pandemic and pandemic experiences.
"For the last couple of years, we have gone into the community nursing homes, we are keeping it, and this year we're also going to include diversified services. We feel like it makes it a little more accessible to all of those who might otherwise not get to take part. So, we'll have different dates with different afternoons where we go into the nursing homes and the group homes and then that way they can be part of the weekend. That's great," Gervais said.
The Estevan Kinette Club agreed to move their Christmas marketplace to a weekend later to kick off the Festival of Trees. Gervais said it provides "fantastic Christmas shopping," so to have it on the same weekend as the Festival of Trees works really well.
The Breakfast with Bruins will be brought back as well. The Bruins will be out in different locations, and there'll be free breakfast for the kids around town, Gervais said.
The foundation is still working on arranging locations for some of the events as well as sponsorships. The entertainment list for the gala is still in the works as well. The Mercury and our provincial news hub, www.sasktoday.ca, will have more details on the St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation's Festival of Trees as soon as they become available.
And while the preparations are in the full swing, the foundation invites the community to join them as volunteers. Gervais noted that every year they have many residents supporting them in that capacity, and she hopes to see the trend continue this year.
