A big event took over a little community last weekend, when the Village of Stewart Valley won the chance to host a Roughriders Block Party. 

According to Jennie Moen, an organizer for the event, is also the one who submitted an application for the Riders to visit. 

“We actually had applied for the Roughriders Block Party before we had the fire,” Moen said. “We had put it out there, everybody was voting, and then the school burned down.”  

The Stewart Valley School and Community Centre would have been their venue for the event, and with it gone, the community started to look for other ideas. 

Moen added that she approached the Riders and said that if they won, they would find a venue for it, and asked to not be taken out of the running due to the circumstances.  

Sure enough, the RM of Saskatchewan Landing 167 Fire Department, who were on scene fighting the blaze at the school in August, donated their hall as a space to use for the night.  

“We actually had our fire fundraiser event planned for October 8,” she said. “We found out two and a half weeks ago that we won the block party as well, by thousands of votes. So, we decided just to keep [the events] together.” 

The party started at 4 p.m. with special guests arriving soon after, including two Rider alumni, team cheerleaders, and Gainer the Gopher. 

A roast beef dinner was cooked by a crew of local residents, and the Roughrider game kicked off on the big screens at 6 p.m. 

Pure Sweetness from Regina came out for the event, selling cotton candy and candied apples.  

After the big night, the total money raised for the village tallied around $60,000. 

"The communities that come to support us and the people that donated time and resources and donations--I just can't say thank you enough,” Moen said. “We had so many, and I couldn't possibly list them all, but volunteers, organizations, businesses. They just deserve a huge, huge thank you from us because we couldn't have done any of this without them.”