I had the honor and privilege this week of attending the “One Million Dollar Shootout” event on Thursday evening at Riverside Golf Club. It’s an event organized by the Visiting Nurses Foundation to raise funds, which this year were dedicated to pediatric hospice care in our communities.
The public event took place at the Riverside Pavilion on the golf course below the clubhouse and rooftop bar, and utilized the driving range for the qualifying round of the shootout event. As event goers purchased raffle tickets for various items and prize packages and enjoyed appetizers and refreshments, dozens of people lined up for their chance to swing for a million dollars.
The qualifying round features a 75 yard challenge where you have to land a golf ball in one of four small plastic kiddie pools — in a clover configuration — filled with water. After nearly 3 hours of attempts by golfers of every skill level, five men earned the opportunity to move on to the next round by sinking a golf ball.
Prior to the semifinal round of the event, Visiting Nurses Foundation Executive Director (and event organizer) Jennifer Collins addressed the crowd, highlighting each of the event sponsors’ contributions. She then explained the passion and inspiration behind this year’s pediatric hospice care benefit.
Joshua was just 19 months old when passed away, according to Collins. She explained that during his life, he particularly enjoyed music therapy. It was an exceptional comfort to both directly to Joshua and indirectly to his parents, who were in attendance at the event and who Collins introduced to the crowd.
Collins explained that the Visiting Nurses Foundation was able to provide music therapy for Joshua while he was on hospice care, without additional expense to the family.
I cannot imagine a more compassionate, worthy cause than one that supports these families — right here in our own hometowns — during such difficult and heartbreaking experiences.
Collins noted that, because of the generosity of the event sponsors, this year’s event — and Friday’s accompanying annual golf tournament — were on track to collect more than $70,000 to $80,000. Collins went on to note that each music therapy session cost approximately $50, so this year’s events would have an incredible impact in accomplishing their comfort care mission.
Collins also noted something else I didn’t know about the organization: Every single dollar donated to the Visiting Nurses Foundation goes back into the community. How? The revenue generated by the Visiting Nurses Thrift Store retail locations are able to cover 100 percent of the organization’s administrative costs.
If you aren’t familiar with the Visiting Nurses Foundation as an organization, they also operate a medical equipment bank which can save local families hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment costs.
In short, the organization champions some really incredible projects that provide unique benefit to our community. And, last night’s event was a wonderful success. The foundation is fortunate to have Collins as their leader. Her passion and drive for the mission of the organization shined through her comments to the crowd during the event.
But you’re probably wondering if anyone actually won the million dollars, right?
Following the qualifier on the driving range, the crowd moved to the 18th hold for a “sudden death” 20-yard chip-off. This whittled the competition down to three.
In the end, nobody got the hole in one for the million in the final round — but Centralia’s own Andy Erb took home bragging rights with the closet shot and took home a few cool prizes from the event.
If you have the opportunity support the Visiting Nurses Foundation or their thrift store locations, please know that you’re supporting a wonderful organization with a fantastic mission.
In other news, numerous tips have come in since my column on the Chehalis Municipal Rose Gardens ran. Some tipsters claim original plans for the Vernetta Smith Library included the gardens when it was constructed in 2007-2008. There isn’t mentioned that I’ve found yet in The Chronicle archives of this. But, indeed, there is a concrete slab roughly where the gardens were previously located (if my recollection serves me). It’s now a small sitting area.
Other tipsters have mentioned the possibility that an inadvertent tragedy occurred the brought an unexpected demise to the gardens. Others pondered possible vandalism.
I’ve reached out to a few locals and I’ll be checking again with the city hall and the parks department this coming week. If you have any knowledge or photos of what happened to the Chehalis Municipal Rose Gardens, drop me a line at voiedevelopment@comcast.net.
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Brittany Voie is The Chronicle’s senior media developer. She welcomes correspondence from the community by email at bvoie@chronline.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BrittanyVoieTheChronicle or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/chronbvoie.
