Reg Fontaine (left), the owner of A&W presents the cheque with his wife Connie and mother Joanne, and owner of Canadian Tire, Malcolm Jenkins to Rose Garden Hospice board member, Ralph Boychuk (right) on Wednesday. Missing: Leo Fontaine. (Dawson Thompson/paNOW Staff)

By Dawson Thompson

Community fundraiser

A&W wraps up community fundraiser for the Rose Garden Hospice

Aug 4, 2021 | 11:13 AM

Never has the bite of a burger tasted so good.

A&W recently fundraised $50,000 for the Rose Garden Hospice with their recent teen burger fundraiser campaign.

Over the past three months, A&W has picked three different weeks where $2 from every teen burger sold in Prince Albert would go to the hospice. In total, the restaurant fundraised $25,000 and then doubled the amount.

“This is an incredible donation,” Ralph Boychuk of the Rose Garden Hospice said. “We certainly appreciate any donation but certainly appreciate those businesses that get behind us. Today is another example of the generosity of our community.”

The hospice wanted to be over halfway of their fundraising goal of $4 million dollars before they began construction, which they did just over two weeks ago. The hospice is currently at $2.9 million, and there will still be a few more fundraisers in the future.

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They first began the construction a few weeks ago with more done later this week.

“All the permits have been approved,” Boychuk said. “We understand there should be some digging going on sometime this week, or early next week.”

Reg Fontaine (left) the owner of A&W presents a cheque with his wife Connie and mother Joanne to Rose Garden Hospice board member, Ralph Boychuk (right), on Wednesday morning. Missing, Leo Fontaine. (Dawson Thompson/paNOW Staff)

The fundraiser had quite an important meaning for the Fontaine family who own A&W.

“My older sister was a good friend of Rose’s and spent a lot of time with her before her passing,” Reg Fontaine. “It was just one more motivation to get on board.

“It’s a great community cause to have a hospice. There is a real need for it in the community.”

Many customers specifically came to A&W to contribute to the effort.

“There was people calling the restaurant from offices and saying they would like 20 teen burgers,” Fontaine said. “It was a very positive thing. The equivalent of the promotion was just over $25,000 in relation to the sales. We were so excited from the response from the city that decided to double to contribution.”

The restaurant may not be done with fundraising for the hospice and may do something in the future, however nothing is planned at the moment, Fontaine said.

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Dawson.thompson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @dawsonthompson8