Three tree tribute to the Sawdust Fusiliers salutes England, Canada and France. Photos 250News

Prince George, B.C. – The Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation’s 22^nd annual Festival of Trees is underway at the Prince George Civic Centre.

The festival, which marks an unofficial start to the holiday season, kicked off Friday evening and continues through to next Sunday, November 29^th and this year has a Lumberjack Christmas theme with a focus on the City’s 100^th birthday.

It takes literally hundreds of volunteers to put the festival together and, perhaps surprisingly, some of those volunteers come from out of town.  One such person we ran into on Saturday was David Wharrie, former Executive Director of the Healthcare Foundation and in the past very directly involved in running the Festival of Trees.

For this event he says “I’m a volunteer and I’m the gofer.  My job is to do as directed, and it works really well.”  Regarding the out-of-town help he says “well we’re now from Kamloops and came back to do this, we had a volunteer come from Smithers, we have somebody who flies in from Alberta, somebody from the southeast corner in Nelson came up and we also know we have other volunteers who come to spend time with family but we’re not sure where they come from.”

Each ornament on designer Sandra DaSilva’s Memory Tree (above right) depicts an aspect of Prince George history

“It’s a very dedicated group, lots and lots of hours.  We started last Sunday morning at 10 a.m. to get ready for yesterday’s (Friday’s) 6 o’clock event.  We were actually set to go an hour before, probably one of the first times ever we haven’t been putting signs out just as people are coming in.”

As far as the display is concerned Wharrie says “this year our goal was over 100 trees for the hundredth celebration of Prince George and there are over a hundred decorated trees at the festival.  Brand new design, Gift Shop is here, kid’s area has got some new items.”

“We’ve got a beautiful new thing called a Mirror Tree: you buy one, you get the first one and the tree behind it is donated through St. Vincent de Paul to a family here in the community.  It’s a great idea, charity, charity, charity, it supports your community, that’s what this is all about.”

Santa welcomes visitors to Festival of Trees

Wharrie says “new this year we have a 50/50 draw that’s going to run the whole length of the festival so a potential prize, depending on how many tickets are sold, could be as high as $15,000.  Outside (the main hall) we have the three raffle trees and then inside they have the Miracle Trees plus all the Silent Auction.  The live auction trees will be done at the gala next Friday night.”

“And then up front you’ll see a Mr PG that’s here, first time ever we’ve had Mr PG, a trademark approved by the City.  You can actually buy that at Live Auction night (Nov 27^th) but it’s going to be donated to the City and it will be on display.”

Wharrie says this year’s changes come about through “new ideas, new people coming in.  Twenty-two years you learn lots, we have people who’ve come in and say “well, can we do this?” and we say “well sure.”

“The group actually starts planning next year’s festival the night that this ends.  We get together as a committee for a wrap-up dinner, talk about this year’s event for 15 minutes and then the planning starts for 2016.  I can tell you there are people who have designed trees already that are here.  I talked to one designer and she’s looking at what she’s doing for 2017.”

“This is a passion,” says Wharrie “we started this in 1994 to become part of the family tradition and as a thank-you to the people of Prince George for supporting the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation and our hospitals.  This is what we’ve come to, it’s been a wonderful journey for all of us.  There are a number of us who have planned and worked at every festival, and when you see the crowds that will come out over the next ten days it just make you feel good.”

Wharrie figures at least 600 people have contributed in one fashion or another as a volunteer for this festival.  He says “it’s a big effort.  We contact our people from the past, we get lots of new volunteers and interesting this year we’ve got a new crop of younger volunteers.”

“There’s a tree done by the College Heights Interact Club, a Literacy tree.  They’ve gone out as a group of high school students and, with a little support from a couple of the Rotary clubs in town, have been able to develop this beautiful tree.  It’s the first time we’ve had a youth group put in a tree.”

You can gather your pals for your own Lumberjack (Jill?) photo

Will Wharrie be back next year?  “That probably will occur, I mean things change but the plan initially is ya, we’ll be back to help again.  It’s part of our life, it’s a family tradition, it’s a way to start the holiday season.  And the family that plans this, the 23 members of the planning committee plus all the volunteers, we too are like a good solid family.”

And again, all proceeds from the Festival of Trees go to the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation