107 golfers participated in Good Grief’s Golf Fore the Kids outing at TPC Jasna Polana on Monday, May 6th raising $123,000 to support its mission to provide unlimited and free support to children, teens, young adults, and families after the death of a mother, father, sister, or brother through peer support programs, education, and advocacy.
This year’s golf outing welcomed back golfers from previous years, as well as enthusiastic newcomers. Craig Brauer and Keith Alexander from Princeton BMW, the event’s Hole-in-One sponsor, were excited to be supporting Good Grief at their first Golf Fore the Kids. “There are a lot of kids going through really tough times and they have nowhere to go to talk about their struggles. Good Grief is definitely needed in our community,” said Craig. “I lost a brother and a parent. Talking to friends and family, having a support system, and generally not feeling alone made all the difference,” Keith added, echoing the experience of hundreds of Good Grief’s participants.
The fun filled day of golf concluded at TPC Jasna Polana’s clubhouse with An Evening Fore the Kids, which included dinner, a silent auction, a wine pull, and a Good Grief participant speaker. The 15-year-old speaker, Jordyn, lost her father 5 years ago,
“When my dad died, I felt like I lost a part of myself; I felt like I lost my best friend; I felt like my whole world had fallen apart. I didn’t know how to manage the way that I felt or how to communicate to people about how much I was hurting,” Jordyn bravely shared to the room of 140 guests. “After our first night at Good Grief, my little sister and I couldn’t wait to go back! For the first time, I felt that I was able to talk about my situation and know that the other kids actually understood what I was going through.”
Jordyn is one of over 900 participants that attend Good Grief’s free programs. The need for Good Grief’s grief support programs, advocacy, and lessons in resiliency is tremendous throughout our communities. “When you support a kid like Jordyn, your impact doesn’t stop with her or the hundreds of kids like her at Good Grief,” said Joe Primo, Good Grief’s CEO. “What you make possible in a Good Grief kid, you make possible in other kids. Participants like Jordyn are among the first to step up and help other kids who are hurting, even though their own pain is tremendous. Even though their loss is unimaginable, they have the strength and, really, an inner-Good Grief superpower to support other kids.”
Through Good Grief’s Nights of Support in Morristown and Princeton, satellite In Community program in Jersey City and Newark, and Routes to Resilience curriculum in schools throughout the state, communities are able to grow through grief and loss to lead healthy, productive lives. The impact of these programs helps people throughout the community face adversity so that the diseases of despair that are plaguing our culture are stopped in their tracks.
If you need proof of this impact, you need to look no further than Jordyn, the brave 15-year-old that faced a room full of adults to ensure her friends are able to continue to receive free support in their time of need. “Good Grief has given me a family of friends, and tools to navigate my life’s challenges. We have been there for each other, we have helped each other, and we have seen each other grow even stronger! The families at Good Grief have a special bond that we share with each other because of what we have lost, and what we have helped each other become.”
All of this would be impossible without the support of the community.
Golf Fore the Kids was supported by many local businesses who were instrumental in the success of the event. Sponsors include: Celgene, Private Advisor Group, JBK Associates International, Strawn Arnold & Associates, The Wolfson Family, Locatelli, Penn Medicine Princeton Health, Princeton Gastroenterology Associates, Terabyte Consulting, The Hough Family, BW Electrical Services, Holman Enterprise, Vitalaxis, John McDermott, Application Consulting Group, ESG/Ted Grover, Janney, Montgomery, Scott LLC, Don Hofmann, Hamilton Jewelers, NJM Insurance Group, Northwestern Mutual – Princeton, Princeton Fitness and Wellness, Strategic Revenue Group, The Shueh Family, Ulrichsen Rosen & Freed LLC, Princeton Anesthesia Services, Joe Vales and Martin B O’Connor, RBC Wealth Management, Holman Enterprises, Princeton BMW, Atlantic Health System, Abbvie, and Princeton Ratiation Oncology.
For more information on the Golf Fore the Kids outing, or to find out how you can make a difference in the lives of Good Grief kids, please visit www.good-grief.org or email [email protected].
###
Good Grief is respected as a national leader in delivering grief services to children and their families. It is the leading provider of these services in New Jersey serving over 1,000 children since its founding in 2004. Good Grief is a registered 501(c) (3) tax-exempt non-profit organization whose mission is to provide unlimited free support to children, teens and families after the death of a parent or sibling. Servicing more than 160 communities, we operate programs in Morristown, Princeton, Jersey City, and Newark. For more information about Good Grief, please visit our web site www.good-grief.org.