Golf will soon be back in full swing, and if you need an extra good reason to hit the links this spring, “Golf Fore YRFN.”
A fundraising golf tournament for the York Region Food Network, the event will take place at the Lebovic Golf Club in Aurora’s southeast on Tuesday, June 20.
Featuring 18 holes of golf, a cart, two meals, snacks, three complimentary alcohol drink tickets, and free water, pop and juice for each golfer, all proceeds from the event will benefit the Aurora-based York Region Food Network and their myriad programs that fight food insecurity and foster food education.
“We have been gifted a charity golf tournament at Lebovic this year,” says Joanne Witt, director of fund development for the York Region Food Network. “We knew of a couple of charities that had tournaments at Lebovic and were talking to them about it, so I reached out to find out what it was all about. They reached out in the early part of this year to say they would love us to be one of their charities that received this gifted tournament. The wonderful thing is they’re covering all the costs, so 100 per cent of all the money we make from the tournament is going to come directly to us and right into our programs, which is amazing.”
One of the key YRFN programs proceeds from the golf tournament will benefit is their free breakfast program on Tuesday morning.
“Money will be used for all of our programs, however…breakfast is so important to people in the community. We get hundreds of people who come on Tuesday mornings just to get breakfast from us and, for some, this may be the only breakfast they know for sure they’re going to have in the week.
“A lot of people who utilize that service are people dealing with food insecurity and just the rising cost of food, fresh fruit and vegetables is crazy. This helps with some people who are really struggling and also … people also with mental health issues [experiencing] the stress of not having enough food, so having the opportunity to raise this kind of money and put it into our programs to make sure that these programs are going to continue because there are so many people reliant on the programs and the services that we do have available to the residents in York Region.”
Registration for the Golf FORE YRFN event is open now. Individual golfers can register for $200, with a foursome set for $750.
For more information, visit GolfForeYRFN.eventbrite.ca.
Brock Weir is a federally funded Local Journalism Initiative reporter at The Auroran
