Last year, more than 200 people have attended a fundraiser that supports students pursuing educations in healthcare-related areas.

This year, the 29th annual La Grande Soiree will be the primary fundraiser for the Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System Guild Scholarship hosted at the Keller Convention Center in Effingham.

Tickets for the fundraiser are $75 per person.

The dinner and dance starts at 5:30 p.m. Saturday with a social hour and appetizers.

Kimberly Lockart, the special events officer at the Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Foundation, said there is also wine tasting and an acoustic guitar player from Tuscan Hills Winery in Effingham.

She said after the dinner, there is a “diamond celebration.”

Lockart said the “diamond celebration” is a raffle.

At that time, $10 glasses of champagne with numbers on the stems are available to purchase.

Lockart said if a person’s number is drawn, they receive jewelry from Town Square Jewelers.

“Those pieces of jewelry have always been valued at more than $3,000,” she said. “It’s a really nice thing to win if you’re so lucky.”

Lockart said 100 percent of the net proceeds from the night are given to the scholarship.

Colleen Stoner, the director of volunteer services at Sarah Bush, said the dinner and dance raises about $25,000.

“Last year was the first year the soiree really got close to funding our entire budget,” she said.

She said they are able to give out about 25 to 28 scholarships each year.

“Most of the scholarships are right around $1,000 apiece,” Stoner said.

She said the guild gives preference to students whose home residence is in Coles, Clark, Cumberland, Douglas, Edgar, Effingham, Moultrie and Shelby counties.

Stone said they do this so they do not get bombarded with applications.

She said before they have given out scholarships to students outside those counties.

Stoner said students within Coles County are more likely to get scholarships.

“The schools we give the most scholarships to are Eastern and Lake Land,” she said. “They get the majority of our scholarship dollars.”

Although, Coles County has the most students so most of the scholarships would go to them, Stoner said.

“Coles County has the largest population really of the counties that touch us,” she said. “It makes sense really that it would be a little more heavily distributed in Coles (County).”

Stoner said they try not to give all the scholarships to students in one field of healthcare.

“We don’t give it all to nursing students or all to those medical students or pre-med students,” she said. “We try to spread it around – pharmacy, physical therapy, dietary, you know, any occupation you can find in a hospital, that’s where we’re awarding scholarships.”

Stoner said besides the annual fundraiser, the gift shop at the hospital partially funds the scholarship along with other programs.

Amanda Wilkinson can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].