It was a great afternoon out on the golf course as new friendships were made, and great food enjoyed while 48 golfers also learned about the work of The Community Exchange (TCE) at the Altona-based organization’s second annual fundraising golf tournament on Thursday.
Not only did golfers learn more about the Altona organization’s mission, but they also got experience elements of the work it does.
“When we launched the tournament last year for the first time, we talked about how we didn’t want it to just be another golf tournament,” explained Executive Director Paul Peters. “There’s a lot of golf tournaments, a lot of fundraising tournaments. We wanted to focus on representing who TCE is and some of the spaces that we get involved.”
Serving up sausage burgers, representing the monthly community meal held at TCE
One of those spaces is food and, instead of hosting a group dinner at the end of the tournament, organizers opted for a progressive style meal throughout the course featuring offerings that represented the various food programs withing TCE.
“Whether it was our community meal, which is the last Saturday of every month, we served a barbecue that represented it,” noted Peters. “We had some of our cooks that do our Thursday free lunches cook soup for the golfers. Our garden plot in partnership with A-CAN, we’ve used those vegetables to serve our community, and we served some fresh veggies here today. And then we have somebody who uses our kitchen regularly, often to cook and prepare for the farmer’s market. They made us banana fritters.”Â
Dishing out cups of hot soup, representing the free weekly lunch at TCE
Golfers were also challenged to step into the shoes of some of the people that come to TCE by navigating their game through the Beyond Barriers Hole. Different items were set up on a green, representing a few of the barriers some of the people face who come through TCE’s doors – including transportation, access to housing and food, to name a few.
“On the green, we placed a (toy) jeep, a tool belt, a filing cabinet, a (toy) house and some crutches,” outlined Peters. “So whether it was health, whether it’s transportation, housing, trying to find employment, all the forms somebody has to fill out just to get access to money that they’re deserved of. That hole was meant to say, ‘hey, we’re going to make it a little harder for you to get the hole and. sometimes. it might be lucky that you got close or lucky that you’re on the right side of things, which kind of represents how life kind of is for some people. Some of it is just the barriers that are in front of them. Sometimes it’s an unlucky situation and all of a sudden there are way more barriers than they expected.”
Navigating the Breaking Barriers hole
Peters is still crunching the numbers from the fund raiser, but says the total is expected to be well over $12,500. Â
“For us (this) is just a huge win. It makes it a really worthwhile day, both from the fundraising standpoint, but also from the community building perspective. There’s a lot of people who maybe don’t come through our doors on a regular basis who maybe now know a little bit more about what we’re trying to do at TCE. So, pretty exciting.”
He thanks the local business community for helping to make the event a success, noting 28 businesses were involved, 18 of which were sponsors and another 10 that donated prizes.
“We’re very thankful for the people that step up in that way and we appreciate the support.”