2014 Festival of Trees will wrap up Sunday. Photo 250News

Prince George, B.C. – The final total on money raised at the Gala Fundraising Auction Night at the Civic Centre won’t be released until Monday, but word is that the Friday’s event was a phenomenal success.

Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation CEO Judy Neiser says “the evening was an absolute success. There was over 320 people that were totally there in support of bringing the best of health care closer to home. We were able to seal the deal on the diagnostic SPECT CT which we’ve been raising money for for the last seventeen months.”

She explains that ”because it was a $1.4 million price tag was raised money for it last year and then again this year. And this year there was a very small amount that was left to raise, and the room raised that with the kick-off by the UNBC JDC West to the tune of $10,000, which was matched a couple of times and ended up closing the deal on that and raising an extra $40,000 basically for other equipment that’ll be purchased.”

Reiser says “there was no hundred-thousand-dollar tree in the room, there was no 75-thousand-dollar tree. We asked people to scale it back somewhat because we want it affordable to the average person too and let’s face it, there are people that don’t have that kind of money just left, right and centre. Last year was the 20^th anniversary and we went really big and so did our tree designers. This year, understanding that there are so many asks out there with the 2015 Canada Winter Games, we scaled it back and so did our tree designers.”

“We just had amazing results. We ended up with a lot of great people in the room giving really hard-earned money. But that’s just reality, you’re going to have those really high, high years and then you’re going to have other years but I don’t want to diminish it because it because we really had a lot of support.”

Neiser notes that the Silent Auction closes at 4:30 Sunday afternoon when the 2014 Festival of Trees officially ends and there are still dollar totals to be tabulated in that area hence the Monday release for results of the Gala Auction Night and the festival as a whole.

“What I can say though is there is a tremendous force of volunteers that have put this together. I can’t take credit for it by any means. My staff does what they can but, in all honesty, it is a force of volunteers like no other. The auctioneer, who we bring in from Seattle, does about 250 auctions a year and he says he’s never seen a Festival of Trees that has this much cohesion in the room and that much support. He really enjoys coming up here for this event.”

“It was a wonderful evening and Prince George and everyone that supported it, there were people from out of town, we did the regional thing so there were people from Quesnel and Vanderhoof and it’s the regional support that we really appreciate.”

The Festival of Trees runs till 8 tonight. The Teddy Bear breakfast, which Neiser believes is sold out, goes from 8:30 to 11 Sunday morning and then the final day of the ten-day festival runs from 11 am to 4:30 pm.