First published in the Dec. 29 print issue of the Pasadena Outlook.
Highlighted by the wonderful smiles on the faces of kids, First Tee – Greater Pasadena and the Wounded Warrior Project met together at the Brookside Golf Club for an afternoon of golf instruction, family-friendly golf competition, and lots of visible and palpable joy.
These smiles widened when the kids laid their eyes on a table overflowing with toys and treats for them to choose from. For the last two months, greater Pasadena community members have given new, unwrapped toys during the Holiday Toy Drive so that each child from the Wounded Warrior Project golf clinic would receive a toy as a celebration of a season of giving.
Drop-off locations included Pasadena Certified Farmers Market, Brookside Golf Club, Marshall Canyon Golf Course, and to all those that made a toy donation at this year’s Annual Golf Invitational at Brookside Golf Club last month. All donations made this final event of the year a special one for Wounded Warrior Project members and their families.
For each of the last five years, First Tee – Greater Pasadena and Wounded Warrior Project have met multiple times per year for these types of family-fun golf events, where First Tee – Greater Pasadena and their home facility, Brookside Golf Club, host golf clinics to provide instruction to the Warriors and the friends and family members that accompany them.
For many of the attendees, it’s their first exposure to the game of golf. At First Tee – Greater Pasadena, they take on a huge responsibility of introducing the game to the members of the community. Through programming and partnerships, First Tee offers seamless activities that share inherent core values such as respect, confidence, honesty and courtesy, as well as a life-skills curriculum that build inner strength, self-confidence and resilience that participants can carry to everything they do.
Prior to many of these family golf clinics, First Tee – Greater Pasadena also opens their storage areas for Warriors to access free golf equipment such as golf clubs, golf bags, new golf shoes and new golf clothing.
Over the years, these events have also hosted special guest speakers such as U.S. Marine Corps Lt. William “Monsoon” Mimiaga as he spent a portion of the morning sharing inspiration to the Warriors. And at the conclusion of a day of golf, lunch at the always welcoming Brookside Grill where Warriors, community members, golf coaches and staff sit down to enjoy a meal together in camaraderie and partnership. In addition to the group’s golf clinics, gracious donors in the Annual Golf Invitational have sponsored foursomes of Wounded Warrior Project members to play in the event as a further mark of these two community programs growing closer each year.
