COEUR d'ALENE - The collective goodwill of hundreds of guests and volunteers shined brightly Saturday night at the 2011 Festival of Trees Gala at The Coeur d'Alene Resort.

Volunteer Angela Cross was bustling about, helping coordinate the auction and sale of the trees, 33 of them, all laden with holiday lights, bulbs, bows and gifts. The donated trees and their adornments are the focal point of Kootenai Health Foundation's annual four-day Festival of Trees fundraising extravaganza.

"The hospital we have here is such a wonderful institution," Cross said. "We want to make sure it continues to stay that way."

This year's gala tree auction, raffle items and cash donations raised $169,000. The 2010 gala brought in $160,000.

Kootenai Health Foundation director Teri Farr anticipates the final tally from all the 2011 Festival of Trees events will be comparable to the $312,000 raised last year.

Festival organizers estimate that 1,000 volunteers, in different capacities, help pull the event off each year.

"The volunteers are the heart of the festival," Farr said. "We coordinate, but they really bring creativity, energy and talent. It's their hospital, and they're honoring something they know will be there for themselves, their loved ones and their friends."

Since the first Festival of Trees in 1989, the event has raised $4 million to help fund medical enhancements at Kootenai Health. Proceeds raised this year will support the expansion of cardiac services, specifically the addition of electrophysiology treamtment, highly specialized care for individuals with heart rhythm disturbances - heart beats that are too slow, too fast or irregular - caused by abnormal electrical impulses moving through the heart.

Kootenai Health has been working for several years to develop a comprehensive cardiovascular program in North Idaho, said Dr. Dennis Cooke, an interventional cardiologist with Heart Clinics Northwest, a new division of Kootenai Health.

The addition of an electrophysiology program is the final piece of the puzzle, Cooke said to the crowd at the gala. It will eliminate the need for 400 patients per year to travel to Spokane for advanced defibrillators, pacemakers and other procedures that correct electrical currents moving through the heart.

Dr. Timothy Lessmeier, an electrophysiologist with Heart Clinics Northwest, also spoke, and thanked the gala guests for their support.

"Heart rhythm problems touch us all," Lessmeier said.

Almost everyone has a family member or friend who has died a sudden death related to a heart rhythm disturbance, he said.

As part of a video shown during the gala, Jack Yuditsky, a longtime supporter and former Kootenai Health Foundation board member, spoke about his own recent need for an electrophysiology procedure. It would have been better, Yuditsky said, had the treatment been available at Kootenai Health.

"It would have been less traumatic for myself and it would have been less traumatic for my family," he said.