Weyburn's professional golfer, Graham DeLaet and his wife Ruby have made a sizeable donation to the Weyburn & District Hospital Foundation.

The foundation has been raising money for a new hospital for the last 8 years.

The chairman of the Hospital Foundation, Michael Hoffman says the $30 thousand is the first cash donation from the Graham and Ruby DeLaet Foundation.

But Hoffman says they've contributed in other ways. "It's the first major cash donation that they've made, but they certainly were very instrumental at the beginning of our fundraising, with our fundraising golf tournaments. I guess with their involvement we were able raise well over $700,000 in two years."

Hoffman says the hospital foundation has raised nearly $22 million so far. "Our goal right now was $20 million for the building, which we've met. And our next goal is $10 milion for equipment, and we're almost at $2 million there." he told Discover Weyburn. "So, I guess we're 20% of the way towards the equipment, but we're , you know, we've kind of met our initial target of the funding for the bricks and mortar."

The overall goal of the Weyburn & District Hospitals Foundation is to raise 20% of the cost of a new hospital.

It's a task made more difficult by not knowing what kind of hospital will eventually get approved. According to Hoffman, they came up with the $20 million target using the best estimates. "Is it a $50 million dollar project, is it a $100 million dollar project, is it a $200 million dollar project?" he asked. "We have no idea. So we're a little in the dark with that. So we had set our targets based on what other communities our size had done in terms of their new hospitals."

However, the foundation chairman said regardless of the final pricetag, the Weyburn fundraisers have no control over the timing of the project. "Even if we had $250 million sitting in our bank account, there's no guarantee that there would be a hospital today, tomorrow, or 6 months from now. So, you know, we just have to keep working with the provincial government and Sun Country Health Region to make sure that we are the next one that gets announced, so that's what we're hopeful for."

The money brought in so far includes that raised by the City of Weyburn through an annual levy. For the last several years, it has been raising approximately $400 thousand per year, with the city's share of the goal set at $6 million over 15 years.

Meanwhile, some advance planning was completed this summer. Last year's provincial budget provided $500 thousand to Sun Country to develop a detailed plan. That has been completed, and was submitted to the Department of Health in July.

(Clarifies earlier story to indicate that city's portion is included in over-all fund-raising goal)