Volunteers Step Up for The First Tee

To the best of our calculations, in 2018, volunteers have given 2,611 hours of their personal time to The First Tee of the Sandhills. Simply put, that’s 109 days! During those 156,630 minutes, their commitment allowed 724 kiddos to come through 64 programs offered in Moore and Cumberland County. For 9,397,800 seconds they left politics, careers and personal objectives at the door and came together to grow good kids through golf. Because of this special group of supporters, who’ve given 109 days, we’ve been able to expand our week day program offerings to new facilities, deliver classes to up to 18 kiddos at a time, and get more kids on the golf course! In addition to these special volunteers, is our golf course facility partners. They graciously open their doors to our programs and kiddos – welcoming us with open arms and supporting our weekly needs. Because of their year round support, we have a place to meet and provide positive experiences for kiddos. Like when their grinning ear to ear after finally winning a game of tic-tac-toe, or giggling because their chip shot almost got into the net! As you see, it takes community coming together for a nonprofit organization to be sustainable. In 2016, The First Tee of the Sandhills and Golf Pride formally announced a partnership which would support Volunteer Programs – one allowing us to ensure our volunteers were qualified and prepared for their role with the organization, appropriately trained locally and nationally, provided The First Tee apparel, to show consistency and togetherness to parents and facility guest, and later, opportunities to be thanked. Last week, was one of those opportunities as we welcomed guest to our 1st Annual Volunteer and Community Appreciation Celebration at Pinewild CC – a special evening where we began a new tradition within our community of The First Tee. It reminds me of the high school days were you received your letterman jacket or varsity pin. Then, later in college when you survived fraternity initiation and were pinned. But instead of being pinned we’ve created The First Tee of the Sandhills badges. These are a way for us to honor our volunteers, based on their tenure with our organization and frequency they are engaged annually – all of which who’ve given over 36 hours of time to The First Tee in the last two years! This year we honored 21 volunteers! We are grateful to be surrounded by such a great team and look forward to seeing what we can accomplish together in 2019 and how many more badges we can hand out next fall!