$172,000 was raised for four separate charities at this year's annual Hylife Fun Days in La Broquerie Earlier this month.

That according to Hylife Spokesperson Charlene Ramkissoon. She notes the money is being donated to Steinbach Family Resource Centre, STARS Air Ambulance, the Headway Program in Steinbach, and Arts Forward in Neepawa.

Ramkissoon says this year was the eighth annual Hylife Fun Days. She adds the event is for the entire community.

"The key focus is spending a lot of time with our staff and employee engagement and bringing out our vendors and having a good time playing hockey and just having a good time raising some money. This turned into a two day event and we started to really focus on raising money and putting it toward charities in our community."

STARS Spokesperson Shandy Walls says the $43,000 they received will make a huge difference.

"STARS has been in this area last year just over 30 times flying in to pick up patients. The operational cost of one flight averages about $5,400 and that doesn't include the cost of the helicopter or the staffing, so that will cover costs of about eight flights per year, eight lives potentially saved because of this event."

Steinbach Family Resource Centre Executive Director Vicky Olatundun says the donation is a big blessing and will make a large difference for every aspect of their organization.

"We want to complete our road safety play park, we started that project last year and we are looking to complete that. Also a lot of the money will be going to programming. If I can put it in perspective, my milk bill for a year is $15,000 so it will be going to all of our programming. This will completely change the entire organization, no question."

Ramkissoon says they have already started to prepare next years Hylife Fun Days.