When major wildfires swept through central Texas last month and caused unprecedented damage, the University of Texas Golf Club jumped in to quickly help ease the losses suffered by residents of the greater Austin, Texas area.
A time of crisis can pose the real test of a club’s connection with its community. When major wildfires swept through central Texas last month and caused unprecedented damage, the University of Texas Golf Club more than stood up to that test, through how it jumped in to quickly help ease the losses suffered by residents of the greater Austin, Texas area.
During the football season, the club plans regular Friday night tailgate parties for its members around scheduled University of Texas football games. After the fires swept through the Austin area and destroyed hundreds of homes, the club sent out a special e-bulletin on Wednesday, September 7 to announce that it would be turning the tailgate party scheduled for Friday, September 9 (to kick off the weekend when the University of Texas would host Brigham Young University) into a fundraiser for affected families. In addition, this particular party would be opened to the public, and members were encouraged to bring guests.
The club’s staff then set to work to quickly use available connections through the club membership, the UT network and local Austin businesses, to pull together a list of special and highly appealing auction items that included:
- a golf package, and a new set of Nike irons, with PGA Tour player Rich Beem;
- golf and backstage passes with country music star Cory Morrow, as part of a package that also included a year of free instruction from the UT Golf Club’s Head Golf Professional, Greg Garner;
- tickets and passes to the big Austin City Limits Music Festival that would be held later in September (and was already sold out);
- an autographed Boston Red Sox jersey and other items donated by Kevin Millar, the Texas native who helped lead the Sox in 2004 to their first World Series championship in 86 years with his famous “Cowboy Up” rallying cry;
- a three-day spa refresher package for two that included a gift cosmetics basket;
- a kids’ party package for 20;
- a private home dinner party prepared by locally renowned personal chef (and club member) Scott Cinflo;
- a Dell Inspiron laptop donated by the computer company (which is based outside of Austin);
- and, of course, many packages with some of the most coveted items of all: Texas Longhorn tickets and memorabilia.
In addition to what would be raised through sale of the auction items, the club staff also arranged for a special donation drive to benefit the hundreds who lost homes in Bastrop County, southeast of Austin, where the fires did their worst damage. Chuck Spangler, a Player Assistant at the club, had helped to fight the fires as a STAR flight pilot who made repeated passes over the area to drop water on many affected neighborhoods. At Spangler’s request, the UT Golf Club event was also used to help collect non-perishable food items and new kids’ stuffed animals, toys and blankets that could be given to those who lost their homes.
The club staff also asked those attending the fundraiser—which cost $20 for adults and $5 for children under 18, and included live music, a bouncy house, balloon twisters, a face painter, and an appearance by Bevo, the Texas longhorn steer mascot—to make additional monetary donations that could be used to buy gift cards from stores such as Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walmart and Target, which could then also be distributed to affected families.
Two days after conceiving the event, the UT Golf Club was able to present over $40,000 in collected funds to relief organizations, plus the additional value of many donated items. “Because of the amazing support of our membership and surrounding community, we were able to give money to every family that lost their home,” the club staff wrote to its membership the next week. “To everyone who donated and came out to support the cause, we cannot thank you enough.”
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