With summer having unofficially begun over the Memorial Day weekend, you may begin to see an upswing in golf outings.

As the days grow longer and temperatures begin to soar into the 70s and 80s, many hit the links to help raise money for charities.

While all charities are worthy of your time and financial contributions, one in particular has been helping raise money for the Dowagiac Union School District.

Now entering its 12th year, the Chieftain Golf Outing is a joint venture between the Dowagiac Athletic Booster Club and the Dowagiac Schools Foundation.

To say this outing has been successful is an understatement.

Heading into the 2015 version of the event, the outing has raised more than $285,000, which is used in a variety of ways.

The boosters and the foundation are able to provide Dowagiac students and athletes with additional opportunities, which had had to be cut back or deleted all together as budgets are trimmed.

Through the efforts of the two groups and its golf outing, students are allowed to go on educational field trips, have hands-on experiences with the arts and sciences, while sports teams are provided equipment needed to help them be successful and to provide lodging and food for state qualifiers.

It also allows the boosters to award annual scholarships to worthy individuals who are heading off to the college or university of their choice.

Just recently, the booster club awarded six golf outing scholarships and four Athletic Booster Club Scholarships to outgoing seniors.

It also gave scholarships to its annual all-sports award winners.

We support the efforts of all the area groups who hold golf outings, but we would especially like to tip our hat to the Dowagiac Athletic Booster Club and the Dowagiac Schools Foundation for their efforts.

We at Leader Publications would encourage anyone who is holding an outing to contact us so that we may publicize your event. You can email our sports editor Scott Novak at scott.novak@leaderpub.com or fax him information about your event at (269) 357-7820.

 

Opinions expressed are those of the editorial board consisting of Publisher Michael Caldwell and editors Ambrosia Neldon, Craig Haupert, Ted Yoakum and Scott Novak.