3Cs host first charity golf tournament as a new fall fundraiser

By HOLLY PASZCZYNSKA

Staff Writer

There are 600 goodwill-spreading, fun-loving women in our area who are cordially inviting you to an evening of golf followed by dinner at The Highlands in Post Falls. The guest list also includes Elvis, so you know it’s bound to be a grand time.

Sept. 19 marks the first charity golf fundraiser hosted by Cancer and Community Charities (3Cs), one of the county’s longest-running, nonprofit-supporting foundations. The coed tournament will include 9-holes with a shotgun start at 3 p.m. The cost is $54 per person, and includes a golf cart, a goodie bag with a commemorative pink 3Cs golf ball, a potato and salad bar dinner buffet at the Highlands Grill and a guaranteed good time.

Participants can sign up as a team of four, or as a pair to be matched with another couple to form a four-person team. The tournament will be played as a scramble, meaning each player tees off — then the team will decide which shot was the best and mark it before picking up their balls and playing from that best location. “It makes it go faster and gives those that are not as good a player a chance to move ahead,” explained first vice president of 3Cs and chair of the event, Sonia Morgan. “I don’t want it to be a very strict golf tournament; we just want to raise money for charities and have fun doing it.”

Prizes will be awarded for hole-in-one, team low gross, closest to pin, straightest shot and longest drive for men and women.

A golf pro will be stationed at the par 5 holes, and for a $5 donation, will stand in for a player and drive the ball. “The par 5s are really long, and really take a lot of muscle to get out there,” Morgan said.

Players can also purchase mulligans if they wish.

There will be at least five raffles to try your luck at winning, with prizes including a new golf bag, several goodie-filled baskets and a collapsible wagon filled with prize items. Dinner guests will be sweetly serenaded by local crooner Alejandro Vargas, a good friend and fan of the 3Cs. Golden Oldies Costume Shop in Post Falls was gracious enough to provide Elvis with his duds so he could join in on the festivities and provide fun photo ops around the event.

Hole sponsorships are available for $100 and includes signage. Aside from businesses and groups, those wishing to memorialize lost loved ones can do so with a hole sponsorship.

“We have one group sponsor with 10 ladies” said Morgan. “They each went in $10, because that’s what they could afford, so any little thing helps. Of course, it’s gonna take three different signs to put all their names,” she joked.

Marcia Saunders, publicity chair for the 3Cs and an avid golfer herself, sums up the event. “Anybody can play, whether you are a scratch golfer or you are just a novice — anybody can play. It’s to have fun, but mainly to give back to our community, because all of our money stays in Kootenai County, going to nonprofits. We want anybody and everybody to come, and we just want it to be really fun.”

This new fundraising endeavor will be in lieu of the group’s past successful, fall-time fundraiser, which was an annual hoedown-themed gala event. They will also be fundraising this October with a craft fair, which will be held at the Coeur d’Alene Boys and Girls Club.

Earlier in August, 3Cs members hosted their annual Appreciation Luncheon where they awarded $115,350, which was raised in 2018, to 27 different local nonprofits. More than $2.3 million has been donated since the group was founded in 1962.

Deadline to register for the tournament is Sept. 10. For reservations, hole sponsorships or information, contact Sonia Morgan at 208-676-1420 or Ann Melbourn at 208-771-0290, [email protected].