Everyone knows 85-year-old Joan Dismont’s dedication to the End-to-End — but the real event, for some, is how she completes her fundraising.

Yesterday, Ms Dismont presented $2,427 to the charity’s organisers, with about half of it coming from her special fundraising dinner.

“I like to raise money the old-fashioned way, where you go out and ask people face-to-face,” Ms Dismont told The Royal Gazette.

She estimates that she has raised $70,000 by doing the End-to-End walk every year since it began in 1988.

Participants who routinely raise more than $1,000 join the Gold Club and, in 1996, Ms Dismont and her fellow members were called into action.

“We were asked to think of extra ways to raise money for charity,” she said. “I got the idea of doing a dinner party at my house and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

The End-to-End lets her indulge her love of walking, fresh air and meeting people, while the party is an outlet for her social side. Ms Dismont’s North Shore, Pembroke, home was packed for Saturday’s event, with Walter Ingham on piano and Paul Smith playing steel pan. There were also gifts and games. Previous musicians to sit before Ms Dismont’s piano have been Dennis Fox, Tony Bari and the late Earl Darrell.

Other entertainers have included the Sassy Saxes, an all-girls’ high school saxophone group in which her daughter Eva Frazzoni plays, and the young comedian Yassine Chentouf.

“All year I start thinking of what I’m going to give people for prizes,” Ms Dismont. “Everybody gets a prize.”

This year’s party was sponsored by MarketPlace, Soares Grocery, Zaki’s Bakery, Gardine’s Flowers ’n Things, City Market, Esso Collector’s Hill Tigermarket, Aberfeldy Nurseries, Bold N Beautiful, HWP, the Brunswick Street Bakery and Land Fall Restaurant.