One of the most popular winter events on the Iron Range, Festival of Trees is a holiday celebration of the spirit of the season. It is held the weekend before Thanksgiving and area designers create a winter wonderland of trees, wreathes, music, crafts, and childhood fun. This year the event will be held November 17-21, 2010. The festival will feature themed decorated trees, wreathes, centerpieces, and other items available for auction along with special luncheons, Family Day and a pancake breakfast.

What the Funds Are Used For

The festival funds from 2004 & 2005 were used to establish a new hospice program at the Virginia Regional Medical Center. Providing for the needs of those at the end of life is the goal of hospice programs across the United States. Proceeds from the 2004 & 2005 Festival of Trees provided the funds needed to begin providing local hospital care for hospice patients on the Iron Range. While most hospice patients will receive their care at home, there are times when they need to receive that care in a hospital setting. The Festival of Trees proceeds helped provide the funds to remodel the patient rooms for hospice patients and to help defray costs not covered by the hospice program.

The funds from the 2006 festival were used to purchase two heart defibrillators for the Virginia Advanced Life Support Ambulance Service.

The funds from the 2007 festival were used for VRMC's Chronic Disease Program.

The funds from the 2008 festival were used to help purchase an MRI breast coil for women at high risk for breast cancer.

The funds from 2009 will be used to convert 16 long-term care rooms in the Virginia Convalescent Center's 4th Floor East Wing into short-term rehab rooms.  The goal is to provide a relaxing and healing environment for patients who need to stay longer than a typical hospital patient but shorter than a long-term care resident.  This will allow patients and their families to have all the conveniences of home a their fingertips while providing a top-notch interdisciplinary team of professionals to help them in their recovery.  

Supporting the health care needs of our community in 2010

This year the funds raised from the Festival of Trees will be used to help support the remodeling project in VRMC Surgical Services.  Once the remodeling project is completed, more surgeries will be done on a daily basis and with the additional procedures comes the need for some additional equipment such as an another c-arm x-ray machine and equipment sterilizer.