The Amie St Clair Annual Ball has made a record-breaking return to Wagga with the event attracting its biggest ever crowd on Saturday night.
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The Amie St Clair trust charity was set up in honour of Amie, who died in 2009 at the age of 23 after a three-year battle with melanoma.
Trust director and mum to Amie, Annette St Clair, said Saturday's event brought in an estimated $50,000 for nursing services and clinical trials through about 290 people buying tickets and a charity auction.
"It was a wonderful night that allowed for Amie's memory to continue on as well as increasing awareness and getting the message across about melanoma," she said.
The event has been cancelled three times in the past two years due to COVID-19 with the last ball called off just hours from its start time after regional NSW went into lockdown to the Delta variant.
Saturday's event was the first ball since the Amie St Clair trust merged with the Melanoma Institute two years ago.
Institute chief executive Matthew Browne said it was a "fantastic event".
"The fundraising was important and also the awareness for the Riverina community particularly to get an understanding of the seriousness of melanoma," he said.
"The ball brings those two elements together and also it's an opportunity for people who have been around the St Clair family and who have supported them on the journey they have been on.
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"We were very keen for it to occur given we missed 2020 and missed it twice in 2021. It was important as it marked 10 years of the Amie St Clair [Melanoma Trust] and even though it was 12 years on."
Mrs St Clair said she wanted to thank all those who helped make the Ball at the The Range function centre a success.
"We had lots of new faces had come to the ball, which was great," she said.
"People were very generous with the purchasing of auction items. The music and atmosphere were wonderful. Everything just went off perfectly."
Mrs St Clair said everyone was in a "party mood" and there was lots of dancing.
"Two years ago we merged with the Melanoma Institute, and that has been great as we have increased the services for patients and clinical trials are now going ahead in Wagga to spare the financial burden on families and taking patients away from their support networks," she said.
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