Winter comes every year, but a Winter Wonderland in the Pine Bluff area happens once every two years.
About 325 tickets were sold for the Jefferson Regional Foundation’s Winter Wonderland banquet, a biannual fundraiser with a banquet, live music and a live auction held Feb. 28 at the White Hall Community Center.
“This is our biggest event yet,” said Laura Beth Shaner, director of the Jefferson Regional Foundation.
But another event is coming along to fill in the Winter Wonderland’s off-years. An outdoor-themed gathering called Bucks, Birds and Bites will debut Feb. 20, 2027, the Foundation announced.
“It’s not going to formal. It’s going to be more casual,” Shaner said. “You can wear camouflage. You can wear jeans. It’s something more geared toward the men.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Founded in 2017, the Foundation provides nursing scholarships, prescription assistance for patients who cannot afford medicine when they are discharged, gas cards and meal vouchers, among other things. The Foundation has raised more than $4.033 million during its existence.
The 2024 Wonderland benefited Donna Terrell’s Warrior Lodge, expected to open in April at the former JRMC School of Nursing building. The lodge, named after the KLRT Fox 16 news anchor, will house patients of the Jones-Dunklin Cancer Center.
The focal point of this year’s Wonderland was an upcoming special procedures lab to house less-invasive procedures. The lab, which will cost up to $2 million, will be located near the catheterization labs, all of which have replaced previous labs in the past five years.
“The technology is the big advancement, and so as technology improves, things get a little smaller, but they get more powerful as well,” hospital senior vice president and COO Peter Austin said. “A lot of things we do in the special procedures lab is around cancer care and diagnosing cancers, and early detection only increases survival rates. Lots of great work is being done in the special procedures lab.
General Surgeon Dr. Lee Forestiere was surprised with a Legacy Award from the Foundation. Forestiere has worked at Jefferson Regional for more than four decades.
“I had no idea this was coming at all,” Forestiere said. “As a matter of fact, (another doctor) and I were talking about horse racing.”
Forestiere said his honor doesn’t reflect just the work of one person, but a team.
“The people you come across over the years that you’ve worked with as a group, that’s where all this comes from,” he said. “It’s not just one person.”
