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$48,000 at Festival of Giving

Simon Whitehouse
Northern News Services
Published Friday, December 16, 2011

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Stanton Territorial Hospital Foundation's first Festival of Giving raised $48,000, last Friday at the Explorer Hotel.

Foundation executive director Rebecca Alty said she was pleased with the results because it will mean much needed purchases can now be made for the Stanton Territorial Hospital.

"It is definitely great because we purchased a lot of things for every unit," she said.

The items included furniture and equipment for the chemotherapy and IV treatment suite, new chairs for the registration area, a stereo binocular microscope for the laboratory, a baby bassinet for the obstetrics unit, and adult and child eye frames for the Stanton medical clinic.

The event comes from the former Festival of Trees which had existed for 10 years in the community and was sponsored by NorthwestTel. The Festival of Trees raised money through donations and auctions of artificial trees purchased by corporations or individuals. With a reorganization of the festival, this year, donors could go through a Giving Catalogue where they could contribute money towards an item and see where their funds were going.

"I think a big part of this was because of the Giving Catalogue where people could choose an area of the hospital where they wanted to put their money directly," said Alty. She said people could either put partial or full payments toward items and know exactly where their money was going. She said this went a long way to enhance the funding for all units of the hospital.

Tables for the event were sold to corporations, who were then given preferential seating.

Alty said there were 250 people who attended the dinner and music event, which featured popular soul band The Committed. From the feedback she received that weekend, she said the response was positive.

Subsequently, the foundation partnered with De Beers Canada, First Air, Crossworks Manufacturing, and Fantasyland Hotel to run a raffle, which raised $60,000. The raffle prizes were drawn at the festival.

As for the amount of work put into organizing the first festival, Alty said it had been "definitely busy" but because there was no silent or live auction as with the trees in the past, there wasn't as much hassle.

"That made it easier to run and it was just a matter of going to businesses and collecting what we could for the effort," she said.

Alty said people can still make donations and more information can be found at the foundation website. While the foundation is looking forward to getting further responses from the public and corporations, organizers are looking forward to the festival being a yearly event.

"Our general feeling was that we felt it was a success and something that we would like to continue to do," said board director Louise Dundas-Matthews. "We were pleased with the funding received and while we wanted to make sure it was an enjoyable evening, we were also able to make it so that we could help the hospital."

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