Earlier this month, I headed to Sunset Hills Country Club in Edwardsville, Ill., to compete in the Simmons Employee Foundation’s 6th Annual Golf Tournament 4-man scramble. The tournament benefited two Madison County charities that help people diagnosed with disabilities, New Opportunities, Inc., in Granite City, and Madison County Challenger Baseball.
That Friday, Sept. 17, was a beautiful day. Not a rain cloud in the sky and the air had just the right amount of chill for a September morning. When a day is that gorgeous, it’s easy to not realize just how much work goes into planning and executing a fundraising event like this. As an employee foundation board member, I’d like to thank everyone who worked hard to make the tournament an enjoyable and relaxing event for those who participated. I’d also like to highlight a few instances that deserve specific recognition.
To the volunteers who arrived at 6 a.m. to set up and manned the registration table throughout the day, thank you. Without your patience, attention for details and traffic directing skills, the tournament would not have gone as smoothly.
To Sunset Hills Country Club and it’s staff, thank you for the use of your beautiful course and for your hospitality and hard work to make sure everything – from the little details like providing morning coffee to the bigger jobs like preparing lunch and dinner – ran smoothly.
A very special thank you goes to our sponsors, especially to our lone platinum sponsor Acropolis, without them the day would not have been possible. In addition, thank you to all the hole sponsors whose markers helped everybody navigate through Sunset Hills Country Club’s beautiful, but twisty course. Without their support, we all would have been literally lost.
To the firm’s grill masters Charlie Thompson and Mike Kirby, thank you for keeping the dogs ‘n’ brats in full supply throughout the day. Not much can compare to the smell of BBQ wafting across the green come lunch time.
To the ladies who manned the “Deal or No Deal” table, thank you for your winning smiles. With your help, the golfers raised about an extra $1,000 for the charities and, hopefully, improved their final scores.
And, finally, to the volunteers from Clover Leaf Bank and our charities, thank you for watching, even when the tournament ran late, as none of the golfers won the hole-in-one prizes. I hope you had as much fun witnessing our failed attempts at snagging the elusive hole-in-one title as we
did making them.
I guess that hole-in-one will have to wait until next time. But until then, the charities were the real winners, and that’s what’s important.
