Staff with STARS air ambulance spent time at Manitoba AgDays in Brandon this past week promoting what they do and working to raise more private support.

Over the past number of years STARS has set up an information booth to promote the service and to try and generate more interest for people to raise money for the air ambulance service.

“We just want to educate the community and people across Manitoba about how important the fund raising side of STARS is to us” said development officer Lori Derksen.

Derksen says funding means everything because they have six bases in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and it’s costly operating the bases. They use government funding and a charitable giving model. “We need about $10 million per base to operate on a yearly basis. About 89 percent of that figure comes from government support and the other 11 percent from private fund raising sources.”

STARS responded to almost 700 calls in 2017 and Derksen says raising funds is an important part of what they need to do to keep the service going.

“We’re actually starting a new signature event in May that we are going to be doing in some local communities like Portage la Prairie, Winkler and Steinbach and we’ll be doing a radio-thon and we also do the Rescue on The Island event that raises about $400,000 each year and we have lots of community supporters that do all kinds of fund raising events for us.”

STARS handles inter facility transfers, responds to crash and accident sites and medical emergencies.

“It’s amazing when we go out to promote STARS how many people stop by to talk and say they’ve had a friend or family member that was picked up by the air ambulance service.”