The Bank of America Championship, an official event on the PGA TOUR's Champions Tour, is donating $418,000 to area charities this year despite the cancellation of the 2006 tournament due to flooding at Nashawtuc Country Club in Concord, Mass. This year's donation to local charities brings the total amount donated over the tournament's 26-year history to more than $4.5 million.
Within the total charitable giving, the Champions Tour made available $50,000 to Bank of America, which directed the funds to Nashawtuc Charities for distribution to local non-profit organizations. Separate from the total is $5,000 donated by Champions Tour players to The First Tee of Massachusetts for its golf programs for area youth, which the players have been doing since 2002.
Bob Gallery, president, Bank of America Massachusetts, and Walter Lankau, president, Nashawtuc Charities, said the donations underscore the bank, tournament, Champions Tour and players' commitments to "giving back" to the community, a hallmark of Bank of America's involvement in professional sports and long-standing association with the PGA TOUR and Champions Tour.
"Back in June when parts of Nashawtuc Country Club were under water," said tournament director Tracy West, "we - the tournament, corporate sponsors and Champions Tour - committed ourselves to ensuring that the charitable organizations we normally support would not suffer because the 2006 Bank of America Championship had to be cancelled."
"We've said this before, but it bears repeating," Gallery said, "that philanthropic investment is among the most important ways that we participate in the lives of our customers and the communities we serve. By working with Nashawtuc Charities and the Champions Tour, we have had the opportunity collectively to make a positive impact on the work of local philanthropic organizations, and thanks to the dedication of many individuals, that impact will be even greater this year despite the tournament's misfortune."
Rick George, Champions Tour president, said the Tour's $50,000 donation represents a realization of the stresses put on area businesses by the tournament's cancellation, the importance of corporate partnerships to the tournaments' charitable endeavors and especially Bank of America's support of local philanthropic initiatives.
Considering the unusual circumstances surrounding this year's tournament, Lankau was even more laudatory than usual in his praise of the tournament's fans, sponsors and especially its thousand-plus volunteers who stuck with the Bank of America Championship through adversity and disappointment to help ensure the tournament could live up to its historic generosity to local charities.
Fifty-two local charities in all will benefit this year from the Bank of America Championship.
Those local charitable organizations that traditionally have received donations from the Bank of America Championship and will again this year include: Emerson Hospital; Hanscom Air Force Base-Project Concern; Boys and Girls Club of Assabet Valley; The First Tee of Massachusetts; The Genesis Fund; Concord-Carlisle Athletic Boosters; Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund; Greater Waltham Association for Retarded Citizens; and Lincoln-Sudbury Athletic Boosters.
Other local charities that have been supported in the past by Bank of America and that will receive donations this year include: A Place to Turn; Friends for Tomorrow; Germantown Neighborhood Center; Greater Worcester Food Bank; Loaves and Fishes; Marlborough Community Services; Marlborough Food Pantry; MetroWest Boys and Girls Clubs; Stanley School-Waltham; and The Italian Home for Children.
Since coming to Nashawtuc Country Club in 1984, the tournament has donated consistently to about 40 charitable organizations annually in eastern Massachusetts, with a focus on those in the Assabet Valley region.
The Champions Tour players' donation of $5,000 to The First Tee of Massachusetts has become customary over the past several years. The donation comes from the players' Pro-Am winnings and is in addition to the tournament's donation to The First Tee of Massachusetts.
The Bank of America Championship is the longest running 54-hole event on the PGA TOUR's Champions Tour and the only Champions Tour tournament played in New England. The twenty-seventh annual 2007 Bank of America Championship takes place June 18-24 at Nashawtuc Country Club in Concord. Tournament information is available at www.bankofamericachampionship.com.