Organizers of the annual Chairs for Charity event are celebrating another very successful run.

“We ended up with 35 businesses creating beautiful chairs, and sold 1,494 raffle tickets for five dollars each which resulted in $7,470 being raised for Lacombe & District FCSS and their Fill a Fridge and Tools for Schools programs,” said Deanna Nowochin, who launched Chairs for Charity back in 2018.

She owns Nowco Home Hardware with her husband Tyler.

“I think Lacombe loves this event because they can really feel the sense of community that we know and love in our small city,” said Deanna.

“So many people band together for the same cause and it really makes a difference when you can work together towards a common goal. I say this every year, but it is so cool to provide the same kit of wooden slats to businesses and see how different each creation is in the end.”

For the campaign, Deanna noted that businesses have the opportunity to paint the chair in line with their branding – like A&W, D&M Concrete, Gaber Distributors, and BPs did, to name a few.

For the first three years of Chairs for Charity, the chairs that were painted were kid-sized.

“Then last year, we switched to adult chairs, and it was a huge success.”

Ultimately, the variety is simply amazing, she said.

“Others painted their chairs with florals, summer themes, sports themes, or like a vehicle. There really is a chair that can speak to anyone in the community, which is why people keep coming back year after year to purchase tickets.”

In the campaign’s inaugural year, they raised $3,100 for the lunch program at James S. McCormick School.

In 2019, they raised $6,205 which was split between Lacombe Minor Football and the lunch program at Terrace Ridge School.

They had to postpone the campaign in 2020 due to the pandemic, but it was back in place in 2021 and they raised $5,340 for the local FCSS Tools for School program.

Last year saw further growth for Chairs for Charity, with $8,755 being raised for the Lacombe and District FCSS Fill-a-Fridge Program.

Deanna said she is always inspired by the solid support for the campaign.

“Lacombe is incredible! Not only do these businesses dedicate their time and resources to paint a chair – then they spend 10 days hustling to sell as many tickets as they can,” she said.

“This year, Prairie Dog Sports was our top ticket seller — they sold $770 worth of tickets, which is just amazing. We sold a value of $1,010 in tickets here at Nowco, which makes me so proud as well.

“Shoppers Drug Mart’s chair was the most popular with ticket sales — their chair sold a total of 119 tickets. These stats are really cool because any business can sell tickets for any chair, not just their own,” she said.

Ultimately, seeing the chairs that were most popular within the community at the campaign’s wrap-up is also really fun, she said.

“Behind Shoppers, our top three were Nowco Home Hardware and Len Thompson with 114 and 100 tickets sold, respectively.”

Year by year, Deanna said the overall feedback is consistently encouraging.

“The businesses involved really look forward to participating each year and the community loves to get behind Chairs for Charity,” she said.

“We’ve actually also inspired similar programs with some other Home Hardware stores in Canada so that is amazing!

“We’ve also heard some really cool stories about the people who won their chairs – our chair winner here at Nowco bought tickets for her granddaughter to win, as she is a huge Bluejays fan and travels to see their games, most recently to Anaheim to watch them play.”

The chair was decorated with a Bluejays motif.

As to how the campaign works, Nowochin said she contacts local business owners to see if they’d like to participate by purchasing the chair (at the Nowochins’ cost – they don’t profit from this).

Staff at participating businesses will then paint their chairs and commit to selling raffle tickets to benefit the charity.

“Lacombe has always been so supportive of fundraising and community initiatives and we are so thankful for every single ticket that is purchased for the chairs.”