How does a town of only 500 people raise $30,000 in one night to pay the bills at its community curling and hockey rinks? In Midale, they hold an auction and sell a whole bunch of stuff.

That's what happened on April 2 as the town got together for Midale Recreation Board's 11th Annual Fun-D-Raising Auction to take a large chunk out of the rec board's costs involved in running the local ice rink.

After patrons had a chance to browse the auction item list during cocktail hour and after a supper donated to the rec board by the Midale Catering Club, they settled in for an evening of three different auctions: one live, one silent, and one Dutch.

The auction featured over 100 items donated by individuals and businesses from the Weyburn, Midale, and Estevan areas. The "big ticket" Dutch auction feature item was a hot tub purchased with donations from a series of area businesses. In total, the auction raised $30,000 towards the operation of the local ice rink. The Dutch auction alone raised $12,000.

"Basically we had a whole bunch of bills that had to be paid off. Our power and energy bills were adding up over the winter months and the majority of the money went to pay those off," said Dan Gallagher, Midale recreation director.

Gallagher says the Midale Recreation Board is a non-profit organization that helps provide sport and rec activities to the people of Midale and area whose main operation is the ice rink.

The rec board also received some significant help back in February when Apache Canada Ltd. donated $10,000 toward the cost of operations.

"They've donated in amounts before, but never such a large amount so it was quite a good thing that they did for us. We didn't have much money until our big fund-raiser auction, so it kept us going until then."