The mission of The First Tee is to instill Nine Core Values like confidence, responsibility, and judgment in young people through our youth development programs. All of our core values are inherent to the game of golf but are also so important in every aspect of life. We want to help children succeed on and off the golf course: at home, at school, and in other activities.
Last week, we distributed 250 backpacks filled with school supplies to Lowcountry students. For the last 3 years, we have held our annual SNAG Some Supplies event each August, before school starts, for young people who have taken part in Core Golf & Life Skills Programming that year. The backpacks and supplies are donated by
The First Tee Young Ambassadors Council. The goal is to give kids the backpacks and school supplies they need to feel confident and persevere through the new school year. Because of the heavy rainfall and flooding across our area this month, we were unable to play our traditional SNAG baseball game, but we did distribute 50 backpacks to Core participants.
However, this year, 50 backpacks wasn’t enough for our Young Ambassadors Council!
The Young Ambassadors Council, under the project leadership of Tyson Marlow and Brittain Cherry, set a goal of upping their past donation numbers from 30 backpacks to 200. When that goal was reached, they increased the goal again and collected enough money to pack 250 backpacks this year. With 50 of the backpacks going to Core Program participants, we were left with 200 in need of good homes. Last year, we began partnering with Charleston Promise Neighborhood to provide after school programming at one of their sites, Mary Ford Elementary. We even transported some of their students to Patriots Point this spring to take part in our PLAYer Core Program this spring. On Friday night, we took part in Mary Ford Elementary’s Back to School Bash where we handed out all 200 of the backpacks to families with pre-school through fifth grade-age children!
We wish all of our participants a successful and fun back to school season! For our next Participant Spotlight, we would like to share all of your “first day of school” photos, so please email photos of your children to Program Director, Meghan Taylor:
[email protected].
