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By Alessia Proietti

Friday - Sunday

Festival of Trees celebrates 30th anniversary raising funds for hospital this weekend

Nov 23, 2023 | 8:00 AM

Red Deer’s annual Festival of Trees will be celebrating its 30^th anniversary this weekend.

From November 24-26 at Westerner Park (4847A 19 St.), the event uses funds raised through various holiday activities towards critically needed equipment at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre (RDRHC) and other healthcare centres in central Alberta.

This year, funds will purchase new and replacement equipment for the Operating Room (OR) at the RDRHC.

“The operating room makes up almost half of the equipment needs in our hospital; they’re very tech-heavy,” said Manon Therriault, Chief Executive Officer of the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation.

“The beauty of that is having the best equipment in our OR recruits physicians because physicians coming to look for a place to practice, they are looking for that high tech equipment that they’ve been trained on and the equipment that they want to use.”

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The charity adds that this can improve the patient experience and reduce wait times for surgeries.

She added that while the need for equipment never ends, they will focus on urology, dealing with the urinary-tract system, and orthopedics, dealing with musculoskeletal issues, as well as anesthesiology.

Therriault says people can expect at the festival all the classical elements they love and remember.

“I’m hoping to see every single person in Red Deer,” she said jokingly. “Most people, I feel, may have come once over the last 30 years so our hope is that everyone comes back and relives those memories.”

The event will kick off with a Preview Dinner on Thursday for sponsors.

Activities for the public starting Friday include the Tree Room, filled with 50 Christmas trees for bidding designed by decorators, Candy Cane Lane with children’s games and a visit from Santa Claus, one of the largest silent auctions in the region, a gift and sweet shop, raffles, and an entertainment stage.

Already sold out are the Festival of Wine & Spirits sampling on Friday night, as well as the Mistletoe Magic event on Saturday night for fathers and daughters.

Still available are tickets for the Festival Pancake Breakfast Sunday morning.

With no fundraising goal in particular, Therriault says they hope to raise as much funds as possible for the hospital’s needs.

She says celebrating three decades of the festival speaks to the level of commitment and excitement from the community over generations.

“We have people who were bringing their children who are now bringing their grandchildren. I think it speaks to the way that our community functions; we’re a rooted community and I think tradition speaks volumes but we’re also a very generous community, that’s one thing I’ve noticed about central Alberta is that people want to do better and they want to help and see things happen so it’s really nice to see the community continue to back us,” she said.

The Festival is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and until 4 p.m. on Sunday.

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