Saturday night the village of Abbey hosted their the fifth-annual Steak and Lobster Fundraiser for their business and community centre and raised a record total.

On top of the dinner, the fundraiser featured entertainment from the Swift Current Improvisational Theatre and comedian Sean Lecomber, as well as a silent and live auction that in total raised over $50,000.

Jenn Prentice-Biensch, a board member of the Abbey business community centre, said that the money raised will help them replace the roof on their community centre.

"We are fundraising to put a new roof on the building which is a huge capital project for a community of our size," she said. "It's pretty amazing considering the size of our town and the fact that there were 200 people at the event. It's going to go along ways to towards fixing our roof and takes a good dent out of our fundraiser goal."

She adds that with the $50,000 they raised it will leave about $40,000 left on their $250,000 goal for the new roof, which Prentice-Biensch is confident they can raise by this summer.

The business and community centre was the Abbey school before the school was shut down in 2013. Prentice-Biensch says that they were able to turn a poor situation into a positive as the building has become one of the most important buildings in the community.

"This is our hall and gym," she said. "Our community thrift store is in here, which is all volunteer ran and raised money for our community centre. We had a kids room, and our library is in here. We have a fitness centre, so tons of things are going on in this building and it's used every day by virtually everybody in this community."

Prentice-Biensch says that to see all the support for their community and the fundraiser was overwhelming.

"We were a sell out which was fantastic, and we've had a lot of out of town support which is great," she said. "We couldn't do it without them, and we call them the friends of Abbey because they are very much appreciated. This is a huge fundraiser for us - probably one of our biggest fundraisers of the year - and we are really overwhelmed with all the sponsorship and support we've had."

She adds that they started hosting the event as a way to draw attention to the village.

"A bunch of young people in the community had a big meeting about creating hype around our community and creating a sense of pride, and keeping our community alive, so we decided to create this event," she said. "Over the last five years, we've raised a ton of money for this centre, and we've all worked together, and it's been great."

She adds that they brought in the lobster and steak because they wanted to give people something a little different and something that people aren't accustomed to on an everyday basis.

Prentice-Biensch noted this year's event was a little different as it was St. Patrick's Day themed and that they were able to achieve their goal as people had some laughs, some fun, and they were able to raise some money.