A fundraising and awareness event was held yesterday in Portage la Prairie in support of Sunset Palliative Care.

It was a garden party and art exhibition at Don Pelechaty's home on Island Park.

He feels it's important to illustrate how important the service is, especially for people with limited resources, and wants to hold a regular event every July 24th.

"And we raise a few grand each year. And I want to even carry it further than this. I think maybe once a month we should have a tea party, so that we can always have cash coming in. A one-day event is not enough, and I want them to seize on July 24th as their day. And from now on, we'll have some social events to raise some bucks."

The gathering was coordinated by Chris Dumont, whose connection to palliative care is personal.

"My mum was involved with palliative care when she had cancer, and I saw how much work they did to help the family, to help the patient. People don't realize until they're exposed to it, just how much work goes into caring for someone in their final days."

Sunset Palliative Care Volunteer Coordinator Aldene Moroz is grateful, and feels the large turnout indicates the impact of Sunset's work in the area.

"I've seen familiar faces here, I've seen people I've never met before who have come up to me and said 'Your program at Sunset was so good when my mother or my father or my child was passing with a terminal illness', and when you hear that, it makes you realize that our program really is doing a great amount of work in this community, and the surrounding area, so I'm thrilled."

Roughly $2700 was raised yesterday.

Here are more pictures.