KENORA — For the past 19 years, the Kenora and Lake of the Woods Community Foundation have been lighting up the City of Kenora with an event tailored to encapsulate the holiday season.
Tara Douglas, the chair of the Festival of Trees Committee, the community foundation's Festival of Trees is the largest fundraising event of the year with approximately 30 per cent of donations going into the organization's operating budget.
“Every dollar stays in our community. By supporting our operations, it allows the Community Foundation to do the tremendous work that they do in our catchment area and in our region,” Douglas said.
Last year, the community foundation gave a total of nearly $500,000 in grants to 68 organizations throughout the community such as healthcare providers, senior living centres, local artists, music festivals, the homeless shelter, and food banks.
“We are a major partner in our catchment area. Being able to support our operations is vital to our continued work. We like every other organization had challenges during COVID, and we do, like other non-profits, have goals of expanding the work that we do and continue to make every more impactful grants back to our community partners,” Douglas said.
This year’s festival theme is a timeless classic — Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. Sixteen decorating team are jamming to get 16 trees ready for auction. Eight of the fully decorated trees will be placed in a silent auction, which all Kenora residents can bid on during the week before the Festival of Trees.
Along with the decorated trees, the silent auction will also have additional prizes donated by community sponsors like a snowmobile suit, Winnipeg Jets package, and spa packages.
On Dec. 3, the community foundation will be hosting a live auction for the other eight trees through their website.
“This year’s format which is slightly different since things have changed during COVID. This year we are doing a full sit-down dinner. We’ve partnered with four local restaurants and people buy tables at the restaurant of their choice. They have a beautiful three-course meal and a welcoming cocktail. There are some festivities and fun during the night. Music playing. Some dress up according to the theme, so we may have some rockstars there that night,” said Douglas.
After dinner, the community foundation will be live broadcasting the auction to each of the locations where those participants will be can bid on the eight remaining trees through the Community Foundations dedication auction page on their website.
“People are literally bidding at their seats via their phones. It’s a lot of fun. There’s a lot of energy. At one restaurant they are bidding against some friend that they know in another restaurant for a particular tree. It’s a pretty exciting time,” Douglas said.
In previous years, the community foundation held a gala event at a specific location and during the pandemic, they were able to hold the Festival of Trees as a virtual event where local restaurants would deliver meals.
“It was very successful. People were grateful. We were very happy to be able to send a lovely night like that into people’s homes, but that also taught us how we can evolve the event and try different things,” said Douglas.
Douglas recalled last year’s event where they had a hybrid event where people could dine in at the selected restaurants or get takeout.
“The dine-out portion where people went to the local restaurants and people sat down at the table with their friends was so popular that we are just doing that this year and we actually expanded it from three to four restaurants,” said Douglas.
According to Douglas, the Festival of Tree event night has 200 tables to fill, which she said is the most ambitious event yet.
“With over two weeks until the event, we are more than half sold out already,” said Douglas.
For those ticket holders, not only do they get to pick their favourite eatery out of the list of four, each restaurant has designed a special plate specific to the event. Their menus are on the Festival of Trees landing page.
“Each guest has to go in advance to pick the meal that they want. Each restaurant is unique and they are reflective of their own culinary vision,” said Douglas.
The 19th Annual Festival of Trees: Rocking Around the Christmas Tree takes place on Saturday, December 3 from 6:30 to 10:00 pm. To buy tickets for the event go to the Community Foundation website. Tickets are $150 each, which includes a welcoming cocktail, a three-course dinner and dessert at the selected restaurant, and an $80 tax receipt.
Douglas said that table size is two to 10 people, but if a bigger table is needed people should not hesitate to call the community foundation and they will accommodate.
