ESTEVAN — The Creighton Lodge Trust Committee has announced the details for its largest fundraiser of the year.
The event will be held at the Power Dodge Curling Centre on April 22. It will start with cocktails at 6 p.m. and supper and entertainment to follow. This year the lodge is bringing a Family Feud-type game to Estevan.
Lodge manager Shelly Veroba said individuals will be called up rather than groups. People can submit their name to be called up on stage.
There will also be a live auction and a dance. Everyone in attendance, regardless of whether they play the game, will be entered to win a prize.
The people bringing the game to Estevan have been here previously.
Since the fundraiser will be in the curling club for the first time, the fundraiser will be able to accommodate more people than ever before. Veroba said they had 322 at last year’s Duelling Pianos cabaret, and this year they want to have more than 400.
“This year we wanted to make sure that we have enough room, and so we found out that the curling centre is available at that time, so we have reserved it,” said Veroba.
Interest in the fundraiser has been high. Most of the people who attended last year have said they would like to return this year, Veroba said, and other people who didn’t attend last year have said they want to be there this year.
“We have a lot of support in Estevan and the surrounding communities,” said Veroba.
The lodge always gets corporate tables from the five RMs that jointly own the facility, along with the City of Estevan, the business community, and the families of current, former and future residents.
It’s the one fundraiser of the year for the trust committee, which is a member agency for the United Way Estevan.
“We’re just looking to have a really good time while earning money for one of our next projects,” said Veroba. “That will be a pretty big one that we’re looking to take on.”
Proceeds from the fundraiser will be directed towards an expansion of the lodge’s kitchen, which would allow them to accommodate more people for meals.
“Our kitchen is 60 years old, it’s in need of some renovations, and … our plan is going to be just to build a brand new one and then we can turn the existing one into more dining room space,” said Veroba.
They currently feed about 43 people for the noon meal and 31 for supper, and in the past couple of years, that number has been increasing.
If they were to renovate the kitchen, it would have to be shut down. So they’re looking at adding another space at the east end of the building to create a new kitchen.
And once there is more dining room space, they can serve meals to more people.
“We do have a lot of people in the community who will phone in and inquire about our meals, so by adding more space for people to eat, we’re also increasing even the capacity of how many people and how many family members in general can come and eat,” said Veroba.
The expansion will be a multi-year project. This year’s task will be finding an engineer design group who can determine the new kitchen’s appearance and projected cost. It’s a similar process to when they did the expansion of the lounge. They started planning in 2011 and it was constructed in 2015, because they needed to have the money before they could begin construction.
“The kitchen will be the same where once we find out how much … money we already have in place, then we’ll be able to figure out how much we have left to fundraise and how long it will take for us to do it,” said Veroba.
She believes the cost will be between $600,000 and $700,000, but she admits they might be off.
Tickets for the fundraiser are $100 each or $800 for an eight-person corporate table. They can be purchased from any member of the trust committee or by calling the lodge at 306-634-4154.
