A large turnout yesterday in downtown Swift Current's Market Square, for the third annual lunch fundraiser hosted by the Southwest Newcomer Welcome Centre and Great Plains College.

The international cuisine buffet styled lunch raised approximately $3,000 with the funds being split evenly between the two organizational hosts.

"It's more about bring people out and making them aware of the Southwest Newcomer Welcome Centre," Icasiana de Gala, Executive Director of the Southwest Newcomer Welcome Centre said. "We also wanted to showcase some of the food from different cultures."

The funds raised at the event will help send newcomer children to camps and will also help support the English as a Second Language program at the college.

"We have the peer leadership camp, with at least $1,000 going towards that," de Gala added. "Although we had funding for the Community Initiatives Fund (CIF) and the federal government, we had more kids who joined so we needed more funds for that."

Last year's fundraiser still had $500 remaining that will go toward the peer leadership camps program, with some of the remaining funds going towards helping subsidize children who would like to attend camps.