Every year, the St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation has a capital wishlist they need to fund to buy equipment for the hospital, usually amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. In that respect, 2020 was no different from any other year. 

COVID-19 restrictions have forced the SJHF to get a little creative with their fundraising efforts this year, but that creativity has paid off. A mostly-virtual festival of trees has brought them even closer to the goal of raising $400,000 for equipment in the hospital. 

"Obviously we didn't really know what we were getting into with all the changes due to COVID-19," said SJHF executive director Breanne Van De Woestyne. "We really were trying to be creative in every way possible and our community came through for us once again. We're so grateful for the support of businesses, donors, and individuals in our community."

The virtual fundraising for the SJHF may have been new, but the people of Estevan seemed to take to it. The final event of the Festival of Trees, an online auction, wrapped up on Friday of last week and raised over $27,000.

"I think we're very excited about how things have worked with all of our online platforms this year," Van De Woestyne said. "Obviously, with things just constantly changing we had to step it up and be a bit more creative, and again, everyone kind of pulled through with us."

Van De Woestyne singled out the Radiothon for Life as being another event that went very well in a more virtual capacity. For the Festival of Trees itself, another event that went off well was the 50/50, which brought in a total of  $20,490, half of which went to the SJHF. All the money brought them closer to that $400,000 total for the year.

"We definitely are close to that goal," said Van De Woestyne. "Apart from all of the events, we still have our very generous donors throughout the year that do take part in raising money for specific items in our hospital and making those donations."

This year, much of that capital wishlist funding will be for equipment for the new addictions treatment centre. The centre opened in October of this year, marking the first time in twenty years such a facility has been available in southeast Saskatchewan.