Hospital Foundation Gala brings in record cash

A big venue at the Bomber Command Museum in Nanton meant a big crowd that brought in big money at the High River District Health Care Foundation Gala last month.

Fund Development and Communications Officer Cathy Couey says they set a new record.

"This year's Dinner and Auction surpassed all of our goals and surpassed any former fundraising goals that we have reached so absolutely incredible raising over $200,000."

"All of us in the fundraising business, obviously impacted by what's going on in the world around us and never really knowing how that is going to impact us but we were absolutely overwhelmed and humbled by the support and the generosity that surrounded our event this year and just thrilled and delighted that we can put these funds to work supporting our local health care in Nanton and High River," says Couey.

The money raised will be split between health care needs in Nanton and a pilot program on the third floor at the High River Hospital.

"We are going to renovate the patient washrooms to make them more accessible and inclusive for our patients and more efficient and functional for staff to utilize. So our goal is to do a pilot project of four rooms with the hope that AHS would take on the rest of the project down the road."

As for the dinner and auction, Couey says the M*A*S*H-themed event went about as well as you could hope.

"It was a really big crowd and had we had more space we could have sold so many more tickets, everything kind of surrounded the evening, our sponsorship goals were far surpassed, our ticket sales could have been surpassed, we sold out in something like five days and the live auction exceeded all of our expectations, we had more silent auction items than we typically have and because of our generous sponsors and donors we were able to enhance the prizes on our raffles," Couey says.

Pretty much every character from M*A*S*H was represented.

"There was a number of (Corporal) Klingers all working on their own Section 8, but it was so much fun to see that many of them out, we did have a Klinger contest and just so much fun to see everybody that participated and got in the spirit to celebrate the iconic TV show M*A*S*H. There was Colonel Blake and Father Mulcahy, Hot Lips Hoolihan and we even had Colonel Potter's horse."

Next up for the Foundation is the annual Points of Light Campaign.

Next year's Dinner and Auction returns to High River's Highwood Centre on October 19, 2024.

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