Each month, Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport confiscates more than 900 kilograms of banned items mistakenly packed by travellers in their carry-on baggage.

Some of these personal belongings are thrown out, but many other rare and strange knickknacks are sorted and put up for auction to help raise money for the La Maison Victor-Gadbois, a palliative care centre on the city's south shore.

"We're giving another life to those items plus it helps us to give good care to our patients and their families," Melanie Marsolais, assistant executive director at La Maison Victor-Gadbois, told CTV News.

It is a program that has been going on for the last decade. At the end of each month, volunteers sift through the massive accumulation of personal belongings that have been turned over to airport security.

While much of the cache consists of confiscated bottles of water and sunscreen, volunteers never know what unusual oddments they might stumble upon.

Last month's haul included several oddities, including a blender, a flashy snow globe and a lighter shaped like a gun.

Although many of the items are not valuable on their own, volunteers say that as much as $50,000 has been raised for the charity in past years.

Bargain hunters also say the auctions are as good as it gets for sale prices.

"Not (just) half price, more cheaper than half price," one man said.

The initiative was born out of necessity after security measures implemented in light of the Sept. 11 terror attacks led to an influx of confiscated belongings.

"We were looking for an organization to handle these items at one point because after 9/11, the number of items that were intercepted at checkpoints grew and it was becoming a problem for us," said Mathieu Larocque, a spokesman for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

Similar programs have also been organized across the country in other cities including Ottawa, Edmonton and Vancouver.

"We give items to the chaplain and they also do little auctions at the airport and they raise money for their work at the airport and within their community," said Larocque.

With a report from CTV Montreal's Vanessa Lee