At Sun Country Hearing late last week, a fundraiser was held to help out a local Estevan initiative with a charity lunch.

Sun Country's Annual Customer Appreciation Charity Barbecue was held to help raise money for the Estevan Family Resource Centre, which is a community-based facility that is accessible to all families.

The fundraiser has been held for the last three years, with Sun Country Hearing seeing a lot of success out of the event.

Hearing Aid Specialist Melanie Tribiger explains that Sun Country Hearing does more than just cook their food - they also make their own donation.

"Se cook hotdogs and hamburgers and people give donations," said Tribiger, "Then we turn those donations over to the Estevan Family Resource Centre and we match the donations as well."

This year's barbecue was a bit different, as the proceedings also included a hotdog eating contest.

"This year we did a hotdog eating contest as well because we had some prize money to give away for the Million Dollar Auction, and so mid-way through the barbecue we did the hotdog eating contest."

"It was actually a lot of fun. We had never done it before, we weren't sure how it would be received, but we had six contestants and everyone who was there and watching had a really good time, and the winner ate ten hotdogs in ten minutes. So that was pretty impressive."

"The first winner was Hamisi Kassanga. he won $7,000 in the Million Dollar Auction cash, and the second-place winner was Dale Feser, the fire chief," said Tribiger, "We invited him because we wanted someone there who could perform the Heimlich if necessary, and he actually came out in second place and he won $3,000 in the Million Dollar Auction cash."

Overall the barbecue was a great success, as the event raised a ton of money for the Estevan Family Resource Centre.

"We had a lot of people show up this year for the barbecue," said Tribiger, "We raised $600 in donations, so that will be matched by us here at Sun Country Hearing, so we'll be turning over $1200 to the Estevan Family Resource Centre."

Tribiger says that they're excited about next year's barbecue, and while that event's hotdog eating contest isn't set in stone, she says that the amount of success it brought makes it very likely we'll see another competition next year.