The Elk Valley Hospice and the Fernie Women’s Resource Centre were on the receiving end of the proceeds collected from Fernie Real Estate Company’s first Carve for a Cause event in support of local charities.
Owner of Fernie Real Estate Co., Todd Fyfe thanked his team and the event donors for being part of such a successful event.
“We have a great team of people and volunteers here who put in a lot of time and effort to sell some pumpkins and organize the whole event,” said Fyfe. “Some of the donors that I would like to thank are Gearhub, Rooftop Roasting Company, The Vogue Theatre, Mountain High Spirits and Starbucks.”
We wanted to do an event and at this time of year there wasn’t a lot of community events going on that we had to compete with,” he said. “We had staff time available to do it and I don’t know if it was a stroke of genius or a stroke of luck but we just decided that a pumpkin carving event would be a good idea.
“All of the staff put together a list of charities that they wanted to donate to and through drawing short straws we chose Valley Hospice as our donor choice this year.”
The first place winner of the event was Rockies Law who then chose the Fernie Women’s Resource Centre as the recipient of half of the prize money.
In total the contest raised $2,330, which meant that $1,165 went to the Hospice and $1,165 went to the Women’s Centre.
“Thank you to everybody who supported the event either by donating money, attending or by purchasing a pumpkin for yourself or your company,” said Fyfe.
Stephanie Rogers from Stephanie’s Glass who won third place overall graciously put her pumpkin up for silent auction.
The money from the silent auction was also donated to the Hospice by winner Sharon Twamley of Elk Valley U-Brew.
“I was impressed with all of the pumpkins that were made,” said Sophie Howden, organizer of the event. “Everyone put in such a good effort.”
Fifty pumpkins in total were purchased from Molnar’s Taber Corn and Pumpkins to resell and all 50 sold out.
