Fundraising gala hopes to come up big for Nord-Bridge

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on September 7, 2022.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic Nord-Bridge Senior Centre is bringing back their fundraising event, the Under Northern Lights Gala, on Sept. 10.

“We want to make sure that people know this event is not just for seniors. I think that’s where the big stereotype is, that as soon as people see Nord-Bridge seniors, we’re not getting the young people from the community, the adults over 18,” said David Ng, executive director of Nord-Bridge Senior Centre.

He said they were hesitant to plan this event earlier this year after being cancelled two years in a row due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they really needed to get their fundraising revenue back up to speed, and therefore they are going ahead with it.

“We started this in 2018 after one of our staff saw a purse auction that was a purse auction gala and thought it was quite neat, and Lethbridge really didn’t have something like that and we wanted to figure out how we could get ourselves fundraising and more awareness out in the community,” said Ng.

He said their fundraising events were focused on just getting fundraising dollars from their members, and they felt that their members were getting tapped out.

“Back in 2018 when we started this, we set our fundraising revenue at about $80,000 and we would host Old West favourites with some of the old crew that was a part of the New West group and they ran an event for us,” said Ng.

He said that was their first little dip into getting the community involved in supporting Nord-Bridge, and it was a huge success.

“We ran it in-house at Nord-Bridge to keep some costs down, so we were able to cater our own meal with our cooks, a nice roast beef dinner we’re able to make about $6500 a year for that fundraiser and we just had a little over 100 people attend which was great,” said Ng.

He said that running the fundraising in-house cut a lot of the cost, as they did not have any overhead expenses.

In 2019, Ng said they brought different entertainers but continued the purse gala auction.

“We brought in some high-end designer purses and auctioned them off, but we also had some stuff for the men. We had a Traeger BBQ, we had some meat that was donated by some butchers and a whole bunch of other silent auction items as well,” said Ng.

He said in 2019 they were able to raise just over $10,000 from the fundraiser.

“For the 2020 Gala we were planning for, we were planning to do it in conjunction to celebrate our 40th anniversary of Nord-Bridge, because in 2020 we would’ve celebrated our 40th anniversary of Nord-Bridge becoming a registered society,” said Ng.

He said the gala was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as any other fundraising in 2021.

“With that, there went our revenue and all of our other fundraising dollars that we were hoping for, so for two years straight we have seen our fundraising budget for the revenue that we were hoping to earn lost,” said Ng.

He said that amounts to a little over $160,000 they lost in the last couple of years.

Ng said funds raised by the Under the Northern Lights Gala will be used to support their programs and services.

“So we can keep these programs going for the older adults here in our community,” said Ng.

He said seniors need places in the community to socialize and this fundraising will allow Nord-Bridge to continue to provide them with a place to do just that.

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