With the Christmas season coming up in a few short months, the 24th Annual Festival of Trees is gearing up for another successful year.

The Festival runs Nov. 22nd to 26th at Westerner Park.

Hosted by the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation, proceeds from Festival of Trees are used to purchase medical equipment or programs for the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre. To date, more than $13.8 million has been raised by the Festival, with an attendance of over 20,000 attendees over the five days.

This year, the Festival announced it will be directing fundraising efforts to support the purchase of new technology and equipment in two laboratory departments – hematology and microbiology, which are responsible for procuring and analyzing lab samples to assist physicians in the diagnosis of disease.

Event Manager for the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation Alaine Martin said one of the new things this year is that they have a new ticket agent, ticketsalberta.com, where people can purchase event tickets.

Already sold out is the Mistletoe Magic event as well as the Festival of Wines event. However, there’s still many events for those to choose from, as all of Westerner Park will be taken over by the Festival.

“For Taste of Red Deer we’ve got 20 local restaurants coming to support us, so we’re really excited about that because that’s an event that people can come to with their general admission and then they buy food vouchers once they’re in the event,” she said.

She said a re-vamped event this year is the Festival Fashion Brunch, previously called ‘Tis the Season Luncheon. Organizers have now backed the event up an hour to make it a brunch at 10:30 a.m. on the Saturday.

“We’re bringing the fashion show back which our guests we’re really thrilled about, so we’ll have a walkabout fashion show, a served brunch, lots of great raffle prizes and lots of fun with the fashion show, so it’s going to be a great event for ladies to attend.”

Martin said they have been really fortunate to receive the support that they do over the years and that Central Albertans are certainly a generous bunch.

“And it’s a big shout-out to all of the donors and volunteers that come together because we couldn’t do it without either one,” she said.

“It’s just a real great way to kick off our Christmas season.”

For more information www.reddeerfestivaloftrees.ca.

carlie.connolly@reddeerexpress.com

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