Ducks Unlimited hosts night of dinner and entertainment

People peruse auction items at a past Ducks Unlimited dinner and auction event. The annual fundraiser is set to take place again this Saturday.

Ducks Unlimited will be holding its 26th annual Dinner and Auction this coming Saturday at the St. Paul Ukrainian Cultural Centre.

The annual event will start with cocktails at 5:30 p.m., with dinner following at 6:30 p.m., and will feature comedian Jasen Fredrickson, winner of Calgary’s funniest new comedian contest in 2002.

Floyd Kunnas, a local committee member for Ducks Unlimited, said he hopes that tickets to the event will be sold out again this year. “We have 296 tickets printed in total, and everyone from the guests, the professional comedian, the volunteers, to the bartenders get to sit down and eat.”

Similar to previous years, there will also be a silent auction which goes on for the whole evening. Ducks Unlimited have provided two tables of a total of 34 items for the live auction, together with “raffles giving people the opportunity to win trips, spa visits, wine tours and fishing trips,” commented Kunnas.

Colin Saker, Ducks Unlimited’s fundraising manager for eastern and northeastern Alberta, explained that all of the money raised from the banquet goes into a general fund for wetland conservation in Canada. Ducks Unlimited was formed in 1938 and has since become Canada’s leading wetland conservation organization.

The money that is raised by Ducks Unlimited is matched by the rest of the country and the United States, explained Saker, adding, “Every dollar we raise here in Canada is matched by the Canadian government, and the two dollars are then matched by another two from the United States government.”

Saker went on to say that contrary to popular belief, the money raised doesn’t go elsewhere, but stays in Alberta. “We’re pretty fortunate here in the Prairies because here is where the ducks are raised, and where people send the money to us.”

For more information about Ducks Unlimited’s upcoming dinner and auction or to purchase tickets, people can contact Kunnas at 780-210-4088. Tickets are also available at Warehouse Sports in St. Paul.

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