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This year’s event includes 35 decorated trees, 14 wreaths and several specialty items that will be auctioned off during Tuesday’s gala dinner and auction, according to Kelle Schalin, events manager for the Providence St. Peter Foundation.
The event, in its 23rd year, is the nonprofit corporation’s largest fundraiser and has generated about $3.8 million, according to the foundation.
Proceeds are used to help with the foundation’s work, which is “committed to the mission of the Sisters of Providence.” That includes paying medical bills for uninsured patients, buying medical equipment for Providence St. Peter Hospital, and providing ongoing support for Mother Joseph Care Center, Providence St. Francis House and Providence SouthHomeCare and Hospice, Schalin said.
“Last year, we raised $505,000 and we netted $370,000,” she said. “My goal this year is to increase that number. I would love, love to raise $400,000.”
To help meet that number, organizers have added an extra night of public viewing times.
They also are encouraging people to donate at www.providence.org/giving for the foundation’s “Fund-A-Need” program, which will buy monitoring and resuscitation equipment for the Providence Special Care Nursery, Schalin said.
Every year, more than 300 people donate their muscle, creative energy and other talents to make up Christmas Forest.
They include designers who create the trees and wreaths, high school students who help with set-up and tear-down, retirees who sell raffle tickets for the event, music and dance performers who provide entertainment throughout the week, and numerous corporate sponsors who donate money and in-kind services for the event.
Tery Bodette of Olympia has helped design trees for the event for about 20 years.
“It’s a good cause. There are a lot of people that need help,” said Bodette, who helped design a tree filled with mischievous elves of all shapes and sizes.
Armed with wire snips, hot glue guns and an assortment of power tools, the designers usually turn the hotel’s ballroom into a scene that resembles Santa’s workshop while they’re setting up their lavishly decorated trees on the Sunday before the event.
“We build stuff on site,” Bodette said. “If people need risers or boxes – whatever someone needs, we figure out a way to make it happen. There are a lot of good ideas in that room down there – a lot of creative heads.”
But all the ladders, boxes and other equipment are long gone by the time the doors open Thursday for the first day of public viewings.
By then, the ballroom will be transformed into a collection of beautiful, whimsical and awe-inspiring trees.
“I would say that it is a room full of enchantment,” Bodette said.
