Garth MacDonald, president and CEO of G-Mac’s AgTeam Inc., and STARS flight paramedic Jordan Edgerton, who is from Netherhill, work the phones to contact donors on Sept. 13 in the fundraising challenge during the Rescue on the Prairie fundraiser.
Kenneth Brown
of The Crossroads
The 2018 Rescue on the Prairie fundraiser for STARS Air Ambulance is in the books, and a local businessman has eclipsed his fundraising goal for the annual event.
Garth MacDonald, the president and CEO of G-Mac’s AgTeam Inc., had a personal goal to raise $200,000 through his involvement with the STARS fundraiser. MacDonald surpassed his goal by raising a total of $205,250. The event, itself, took place on Sept. 13 near Lumsden.
A total of five participants were flown from the STARS hanger in Regina to Beaver Creek Ranch on Sept. 13 to complete various tasks and continue raising money throughout the day. Each participant was armed with only a cell phone. In addition to that day, people were able to donate to participants prior to the event.
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The Rescue on the Prairie fundraiser has been going for four years. The participants are all “rescued” at the end of the day, and then they attend a banquet later that night. The five participants have raised a total of $524,662.
Each of the participants is paired up with a member of the STARS organization and MacDonald, who was also a participant in 2016, was paired up with a familiar face. Jordan Edgerton of Netherhill, a STARS flight paramedic, was MacDonald’s partner.
The other four participants were Tyler Crozier, the owner of Crozier Ag, JoeAnne Hardy, the president of WBM Technologies, Sarah Johnston, the vice-president of sales and marketing at Group Medical Services, and Dale Ziegler, the president of Canadian Plains Energy Services.
MacDonald, who also raised more than $151,000 in 2016, said he enjoyed the experience once again and it was nice to get caught up with Edgerton, who was his partner in crime this year and in 2016. The fundraiser is not a competition, but he set a personal goal because he understands the importance of STARS.
“I just wanted to challenge myself to do my best,” he said, recognizing that the group eclipsed the fundraising total STARS was hoping to raise. “It was very exciting. STARS had hoped that we would raise $450,000 that day and we raised more than that, so it’s terrific.”
He noted that the STARS Foundation has a daunting task to raise $10.5 million each year to keep its helicopters in the air. The provincial government covers the other $10.5 million to fund the air ambulance service.
MacDonald said part of the Rescue on the Prairie event is to raise money for the organization, but another important aspect is to raise awareness about the importance of raising funds for operations. The G-Mac’s president said he believes STARS accomplished its goals with the event and “it was a great day.”
Two television media outlets, Global and CTV, had personal on site at the ranch. MacDonald said he was unsure if he would reach his fundraising goal, but his supporters stepped up and “it just really shows how important STARS is to all of us.”
The participants and their STARS helpers completed various challenges at the ranch. People who won the challenges earned money from sponsors to add to their fundraising totals. Though the G-Mac’s president did not win any challenges, he enjoyed doing the challenges.
He noted that the final challenge of the day was a manhunt and he likened it to the Mantracker television show. The participants went on a scavenger hunt at the ranch, and the ranch’s owner played the role of the mantracker.
Other challenges included a readiness challenge to prepare as quickly as possible for the flight to the ranch, a 45-minute period when participants and their STARS helpers had to call people to raise as much money in that time, an aviation challenge to calculate fuel mileage for a flight, a challenge to rescue a mannequin from a hay stack, and a challenge when they had to deliver a baby.
MacDonald said the team at STARS are great people, and he really admires the team and what it does on a daily basis. He said he learned a lot about STARS the first time he took on the challenge, but he was able to learn more about how STARS works as a team through his involvement this time.
“We really did have an awesome group of participants,” he said, adding that he knew Johnston because she is from Rosetown and he wanted to thank everybody who supported his efforts to meet his goal. “Everybody was there for the right reason.”
Ashlyn Yablonski, a development officer of events for the STARS Foundation, said the organization is thrilled with this year’s result. She explained that Rescue on the Prairie had its best result in 2017 when roughly $530,000 was raised, but there were six participants in last year’s event.
She noted that the website stays live for several weeks after the event because participants often contact people who are away, so it allows those donors time to return and make their donations. The participants did a great job, she said.
“We’re incredibly thankful for the team that we had,” Yablonski said about the group. “The participants this year were just incredible. They had events going on months before the event and lots of them had lots of donors they were able to call on event day as well.”
She noted that MacDonald has raised an amazing amount of money for STARS in the two years he has participated. According to Yablonski, the average cost for a flight is about $5,400 and the event total will cover a lot of flights. She thanked the participants for helping to keep STARS flying.
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