Fundraising STARS bake pies for air ambulance
Pat Trask and seven other ladies wanted to do something to raise money for a charity. So they became the pie ladies of Louise Street.
“We’re all elderly ladies, but that doesn’t mean we’re not able to do something,” she says.
The women, ranging in age from 77 to 88, get together regularly to play cards, have supper, or do other activities.
When the time came to choose what they would do for charity, they decided to make and sell homemade pies.
Even the crusts were homemade, which Trask says is a huge draw for buyers. They baked 12 kinds of pie, including Saskatoon berry, sour cherry, lemon, banana cream, coconut cream, and peach. The best sellers were apple and rhubarb.
Two weeks before the vehicle crash involving the Humboldt Broncos hockey team, the group decided to donate the proceeds from their pies to the STARS air ambulance service.
“The house where I lived, the red helicopter went over my house almost every day,” says Trask, who lived in the country until two years ago.
“It was something that we all agreed was a very necessary charity.”
After the bus crash, people were eager to buy the pies, so the group decided to make a bunch and sell them for $10 each.
In looking for a place to sell them, they went to the Market Mall, which welcomed them with table space.
On the first day, they took 260 pies to the mall. They sold out before suppertime.
“It just went from there. We just made pies and made pies and made pies,” she says.
“The demand was so great we had to call a halt to it, as of the end of April.”
The ladies say people were incredibly supportive, and occasionally, some would even donate an extra $10 when they picked up their pies.
In seven or eight weeks, they made $5,283.95 for STARS.
Trask says the idea came about because the group decided they didn’t “just have to sit and grow old” — they could help the community.
“You don’t have to be young in order to be productive and do something worthwhile.”