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Friends of Hospice Serenity House hosted their Derby De Mayo fundraiser Saturday evening. The event is designed to raise money for the Serenity house which is completely non-profit and relies on donations to provide quality care for their patients.

The night began with casino games by Fantasy Casino events where attendees were each given $25,000 worth of chips to start off with. They could then play games and win more chips to use towards winning door prizes. Tickets were also available for purchase to use for betting on the horses which got your name in the pot for drawing for the raffle.

Margaritas and Mint Juleps were available and dinner was catered by Joe Spoone of Smokin’ Joe’s Barbecue Restaurant and grill. Cupcakes were served for dessert and were donated by Nancy Goan.

Serenity House Executive Director Stephanie Hamill said she was pleased with the turnout. Hamill said, “This has been such a fun night. We added the casino this year, everyone was given some play funny money to play with and of course watch the races, I think everyone is having a really great time.”

Hamill went on to say, “This is our major fund raiser of the year, so this is our most important one. Serenity House functions completely on donations and fund raisers. Most of our patients can’t afford to pay for care, so by coming to Serenity House we don’t charge for care, we charge a small weekly fee and it just covers the cost of our electricity and food. Anything above that is considered donations so we can pay for our caregivers. When we have events like this, it allows us to be able to care for our patients who couldn’t get quality care anywhere else.”

Hamill said it takes around 20-30 volunteers to make this event happen but wants people to know they will soon be rolling out a new program called GEM which stands for Giving Every Month. GEM will be an online program where people can sign up to give a minimum of $9.99 a month.