It may not look like spring outside, but that didn't stop the Village of Vanguard from hosting their Spring Fling Auction.

The event had both a live and silent auction that featured 81 items being sold by Donnie Peacock to the highest bidders to raise money for the community's recreation board. 

Crystal Bickner is the chair of the Vanguard Spring Fling Auction and said that the fundraiser ended up raising more money than they expected.

"It went good," she said. "We made about $51,000 for our community which will support our rink, our curling rink, and our community pool. It will keep us going for the next year and hopefully a little longer. It was a lot of fun, and everybody had a good time and paid more than I expected, so it was a good event."

The fundraiser saw people come from all over the southwest, something take Bickner said wasn`t a surprise as small towns always seem to support other small towns, but she said they still greatly appreciate the support.

"It just makes us realize as a community how important it is when someone puts on an event in rural Saskatchewan, how important it is for us to go out and support other communities just to keep them viable," she said. "A lot of people knew of us and just came to the community because they knew people and came out to support us."

Bickner said that they decided to host the fundraiser after seeing the success of other small-towns fundraisers.

"Our pool needed the funds to run this summer because wages are about $15,000 to $18,000 just to keep for the pool, so we had to come up with some sort of fundraiser to try and support the pool," she said. "We had seen other communities bring in money. We thought we'd try it and hopefully, we can raise enough money to cover our wages."

Of the 81 items that were auctioned, all of them were donated by businesses in and around Vanguard.

Bickner said it was awesome to see the all the donations they received.

"We would go into equipment dealerships, and they would be so generous," she said. "They would give us a combine for a day, or fertilizer, or jackets, just everything. We made nice packages, and everyone was really happy, and it was a lot of fun, and worked out well."

Bickner added they are donating $1,100 to the Humboldt Broncos Go Fund Me page in hopes that it will help their community.