The George’s charity golf tournament raises $92,000 for program that provides lunches for students at eight Okotoks schools.<\/p>\n
A charity golf tournament has raised $92,000\u00a0for the Okotoks School Lunch Program.<\/p>\n
Organized by The George Traditional House in Okotoks, the annual\u00a0tournament was held on July 19\u00a0at the Speargrass Golf Course.<\/p>\n
A ceremonial cheque presentation held at The George on Aug.\u00a06\u00a0brought in many key organizers and some of the more than 80 sponsors. During the ceremony, the fundraising amount was unveiled, which\u00a0almost doubled last year\u2019s total.<\/p>\n
It’s the single biggest contribution to the Okotoks School Lunch Program to date.<\/p>\n
The program run out of Okotoks United Church provides food to students at\u00a0eight Okotoks schools.<\/p>\n
Brian and Shannon Olson got the idea to start the charity after seeing a similar one in Calgary. They identified that the Okotoks community needed some support for its students and decided to launch the program\u00a0with the help of the church.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a kid needs food, they get it,\u201d said Brian Olson. \u201cWe have absolutely no bias towards any religious beliefs or (circumstances).\u201d<\/p>\n
The program works through the schools’ teachers and counsellors. If they identify a student that may not be eating during lunch, the program will reach out to the parents and offer to provide the student with free lunches.<\/p>\n
The Olsons explained that they can provide up to a few hundred lunches for students on any given day.<\/p>\n
The charity also provides students with grocery gift cards to take home for family use.<\/p>\n
The program is funded by donations with a big chunk coming from the annual golf tournament.<\/p>\n
John Nicastro, owner of The George, wanted to give back to community by supporting a cause that would make a difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a lot of kids that are going to school hungry,\u201d said Nicastro. \u201cLet\u2019s invest in our future, these kids are our future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The George’s charity golf tournament raises $92,000 for program that provides lunches for students at eight Okotoks schools.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-55304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}