The Spirit Centre committee is very satisfied with the turnout and amount of money raised at the Spirit Centre Gala April 9 at the Westlock and District Community Hall.
“It was awesome,” said committee member Terry Brown.
She said 290 people bought tickets to attend the event, which featured a dinner, a dance and a silent and live auction. All told, the gala raised $53,500.
The committee never set out a goal for how much money they wanted to raise through the gala, but “it definitely surpassed anybody’s thoughts for how much we could make,” she said, adding her own hopes were for between $30,000 and $40,000.
There were close to 40 items to be bid on in the silent auction, she said, and 20 items in the live auction run by auctioneer Travis Rogers.
“The people who were there gave us a lot of compliments on the auction items because they were not like the norm.”
The biggest group bid came in the form of 15 men who pooled together their money in a pot, for a total of $8,000, to buy a jersey from the 1977 movie Slap Shot, donated by Fawcett native, professional hockey player and actor Ross Smith.
The men said they plan to frame the jersey and hang it in the Spirit Centre once the facility is complete, because that’s where it belongs, Brown said.
Other large auction items were five chocolate gala roll cakes leftover from dessert, which sold for a total of $1,200. In addition, Brown said the committee auctioned off the centerpieces that were on all the tables for $1,400, which she said paid for the pieces and generated a profit.
Another large prize was a spaghetti dinner for six, for which the highest bidder paid $2,900, she said. Although not included in the $53,500 raised, the committee managed to sell a few more seats in the centre at $500 each. All in all, Brown said she is happy with how the evening played out.
“We’re thrilled,” she said. “Everything went smoothly and the volunteers were amazing.”
