For the first time, the Village of Roche Percee came out and celebrated on Saturday.
The small community, just 10 minutes outside of Estevan, hosted the first annual 'Roche Percee Days' event. It featured pony rides, bouncy castles, an ice cream truck, a pig roast supper and a cabaret with a live band.
"Unbelievable. The support we've got, the donations that we've got. Last I checked, before we even started this event, we've had people donate about $18,000. It's been insane. We never even thought anything like this would ever happen. So, beyond our expectations and the volunteers and the people that stepped up to make this happen, and everybody within the whole community that stepped up at the last minute and got all this stuff organized and everything has been tremendous," shared Jay Riedel, mayor of Roche Percee.
Roche Percee Days' second purpose was to raise money for their community hall. Riedel is hoping to get a kitchen and a bathroom installed in their community hall for $80,000. While the final tally of funds raised from the event has yet to be counted, at last count, the event exceeded $20,000.
"I think it's only going to get bigger from here. We had to kind of do this to be able to gauge how much interaction we were going to get and how many people were interested. It's been busy all day, so I think we're going to do good next year -- and maybe next year, we'll do something bigger."
Back in 2011, Roche Percee was the victim of a massive flood that destroyed part of the area, including their community hall. Riedel felt that community spirit had been lost due to the catastrophic event. It's been slowly built up over the years, but he saw a massive jolt of excitement in the community on Saturday.
"It's given me goosebumps all day because I've seen a lot of the older, I want to call them veterans, that used to run the trail rides and stuff. Basically, after the flood and everything, things kind of went downhill for them. They all showed up today, and they were all impressed by how things went."
"Everybody's new at this, so we're trying to get everybody on board, but yeah, it's just been unbelievable," Riedel added.
When asked if Roche Percee Days will come back for 2026, he didn't hesitate with his answer. "Absolutely."
The Village of Roche Percee is still looking for donations to bring a kitchen and bathrooms to their community hall. People who are interested in donating can call the village's office at (306) 634-4661, or you can send an e-Transfer to rprc@sasktel.net, indicating that it's a donation to the community hall upgrades.