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Debby Alter still remembers the very first Hadassah-WIZO Bazaar. It was 1924, she was five years old and the fledgling fundraiser was held at a storefront on Yonge Street.

Since then, the bazaar has ballooned into a once-a-year cultural tradition where thousands of bargain hunters line up outside Exhibition Place before dawn to get first crack at the curios, clothes, discontinued bridal gowns and Jewish delicacies.

That's why Ms. Alter is disappointed that the 84th bazaar, to be held this Wednesday, will be the last for the Toronto chapter of the Jewish women's philanthropic organization.

“I was very sad to find out it was the last year,” says Ms. Alter, now 90, and a booth-keeper herself. She sells everything from books to knickknacks to ladies' wear. “It'll be a great loss to Hadassah.”

Organizers with Hadassah-WIZO (“ha-DASS-ah WEET-zo”) say fewer and fewer shoppers have attended the bazaar recently. They blame, in part, increased competition from big-box discount stores, dollar stores and warehouse sales.

Still, the group expects about 7,000 people to attend the last sale, and they're aiming to raise $350,000 for Jewish life, health care, schools and women's shelters in Israel and Canada. Some of the money will help to build new patient rooms in the neonatal intensive-care unit at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

Barbi Levitt, 34, a third-generation bazaar organizer, said she will feel “proud knowing that we went out with a bang.”

It takes a year to pull the event together. “You really put your heart and soul into it,” said Ms. Levitt, whose grandmother volunteered for Hadassah-WIZO beginning in 1945 and whose mother chaired the bazaar in the 1980s.

Hadassah-WIZO plans to replace the bazaar with a new fundraiser, which has yet to be announced. But it's hard to fathom building an equally beloved cultural tradition.

“It was more than a fundraiser,” Ms. Alter remembers. “What impressed me always was the fact that young women and old women, mothers and daughters, all worked together for one day, for the same thing.”

Bargain hunters still line up as early as 3 a.m. for the event – some drive for five hours to get to Exhibition Place – and they are given floor plans to study while they wait. “People rush through the door when it opens, and it's just a mad dash to all the different booths,” Ms. Levitt says.

Shoppers describe the atmosphere as circus-like: brides-to-be scramble for discontinued designer bridal gowns selling for as little as $100, and shoppers enjoy the “denim dig” over at the tables piled high with jeans.

Jody Steinhauer, 42, remembers sleeping over at her grandmother's house and getting up early to stand in line in the dark. She will especially miss the attentive volunteers who staff the booths; one vendor who knows her tastes puts aside Franco Sarto designer shoes in her size every year.

“People are pushing each other, but everyone's nice and everyone's having fun,” Ms. Steinhauer says. “Everybody loves a bargain – you see people speaking every language when you're waiting in line.”

Ms. Alter, the nonagenarian, recommends the always-popular homemade foods for sale: corned beef, borscht, chicken soup, cabbage rolls, pizza bagels and falafel.

An estimated 300,000 bowls of matzo-ball soup, 250,000 blintzes and 150,000 salamis have been served at the bazaar over the past eight decades. Past bazaars have also featured a six-foot-long loaf of braided challah bread (1936) and a beautiful-baby contest (1942).

As a final farewell to the bazaar, this year, long-time volunteers, including Ms. Alter, will be honoured at an afternoon cake-cutting ceremony.

9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at the Direct Energy Centre, Hall B, Exhibition Place. ($5 admission; children 5 and under free.)