By STU CLAMPITT
news@readthereporter.com
On Saturday, Aug. 9, Folds of Honor Indiana and The Bridgewater Club, 3535 E. 161st St., held its inaugural golf outing, “5000 Holes for Folds of Honor,” which raised more than $108,000 for scholarships for families of fallen and disabled veterans and first responders.
It was all raised at an event with no corporate sponsors.
To find out how that was possible, The Reporter spoke with Folds of Honor Indiana Chapter President Mike Daggett, U.S. Air Force Senior Master Sergeant E8, Retired.
“They did something that I hadn’t seen done before,” Daggett told The Reporter. “A lot of courses do outings where everyone shows up at the same time and off they go. [Bridgewater] told their membership, ‘Make your tee time like you normally would; show up when you normally would; play golf like you normally would, but stop at the Folds of Honor tent and make a donation during the day.’ So it wasn’t crowded or congested or, for lack of a better term, a pain in the neck for people who wanted to participate.”
Photo provided by Folds of Honor Indiana
A total of 187 donations later, Folds of Honor raised $108,372.60.
According to Daggett, participants were already members of Bridgewater who pay for that privilege. At this outing, event organizers just asked existing members to give a little extra that one day as personal donations to Folds of Honor.
“They answered resoundingly,” Daggett said. “We had no corporate sponsors. So that was a unique feature of this event.”
Organizers made it as normal a round of golf as possible without fanfare, signup lines, a shotgun start, or any of the usual “this is a fundraising event” challenges for players.
While there were no corporate sponsors, The Bridgewater Club waived all its usual event fees.
“We’ve done many golf outings,” Daggett said. “What we normally try and do is find a whole bunch of corporate sponsors to cover the cost of golf, then charge the golfers to play golf. Basically the golfers’ money makes you break even and the sponsorship money becomes a donation. But in this case, Bridgewater paid for everything. They paid for the food. The members already paid to be there. They simply said, ‘Make a donation while you’re here; we’ll cover everything else.’”
Mid-America Beverage, Inc. donated Budweiser for participants to enjoy.
Thus, Folds of Honor had a free venue with free drinks for participants, but those were in-kind donations, rather than corporate checks written to cover event costs.
The money raised – and again, the total from this single event was over $100,000 – will go to needs-based scholarships to the spouses and children of America’s fallen and disabled service members and first responders, including police, firefighters, EMTs and paramedics.
You can learn more about Folds of Honor and how you can donate to support this worthy cause online at indiana.foldsofhonor.org.
Photo provided by Folds of Honor Indiana