ESTEVAN - The St. Joseph's Healthcare Auxiliary brought back its Christmas tea and bake for the first time since 2019 last Wednesday.
The event was held at the cafeteria at St. Joseph's Hospital and attracted many staff and Estevan residents, who stopped by to enjoy the tea and treats, and also to stock up on Christmas baking.
Instead of a traditional silent auction, this year the auxiliary went with a quilt raffle, which saw a lot of interest as well.
Auxiliary president Valerie Hagel, secretary Karen Johnstone and treasurer Darla Wilhelm spoke to the Mercury and SaskToday.ca about their club, activities and future plans.
Since the last event, the club lost about 10 members, Wilhelm said, and gained a couple, but is still down in membership.
"We have 28 members now, and we've been very fortunate that we had an awful lot of staff at the hospital here and friends that donated [baking towards the sale]," Wilhelm said. "We're working on a new project. We haven't got a project yet that we're going to be putting our money towards, but by January, the hospital decides on different projects, they bring them to us and then we pick which one we want to do. So we will be starting another project and that's what we're raising the money for now."
Wilhelm noted that since the beginning of the pandemic, it was a little harder for the auxiliary to stay as active, but they decided to keep going and keep doing what they love.
"We've had the auxiliary for 85 years, and we don't want to fold. Valerie stepped forward. She's never been a member before, and she stepped forward to be our president. And Karen was an associate member that worked in the gift shop, but was active in the auxiliary as such, and she stepped forward to be our secretary. So, I think we're doing okay. We want to be here to support our hospital the best that we can," Wilhelm said.
Irene Krieger and Elaine Meckler are in charge of the gift shop, which is a part of the auxiliary and is open again at St. Joseph's Hospital.
The club always welcomes new members. They meet every third Monday of the month at 1:30 p.m. at St. Joseph's Hospital.
