Tickets for the 24th annual Red Deer Regional Health Foundation's Festival of Trees went on sale today.

It’s the largest fundraiser for the Health Foundation, and it’s happening down at Westerner Park from November 22nd to the 26th.

Events Manager for RD Regional Health Foundation Alaine Martin says the money raised this year will go towards improving the processing of information in two laboratory departments, the microbiology lab, which studies microorganism, and the hematology lab, which studies disease in the blood and bone marrow.

“It’s for testing for the lab, for the patients of the hospital and of the region, because we have to remember that our lab not only services the hospital here, we are a regional hospital, so outlying areas send their tests to this centre for things to be done.”

The technology upgrades in both departments will allow for quicker and easier testing, which reduces costs, improves turn-around-times, reduces the length of a patients stay and improves patient care.

Martin says this event is the most important fundraiser for the Red Deer and Regional Health Foundation.

“It’s very important, we’ve raised almost 14 million dollars in the last 23 years, and so we impact pretty much every citizen of Central Alberta in some fashion with the work that we do.”

To purchase tickets, and for a full list of events throughout the Festival of Trees, you can check out their website, reddeerfestivaloftrees.ca, or go directly to their new ticket agent, ticketsalberta.com.