The First Tee Program - Teaching Kids the Values of Life
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Had a wonderful meeting today!!! We began with P-Prez Nancy leading us in the flag salute (and she remembered all the words too), which was followed by a wonderful invocation by Jude, John led us in a rendition of Happy B-day to Rich R. and Gary Setting and we ended with a Dr. Art “joke”… We were pleased to have past member and visiting Rotarian Dani Tope among us; Rich Reidel brought his son Derrick and John Weiss introduced our speaker for the day, Gary Setting.
As far as announcements went – Carol Furtado, on behalf of Heidi Kimbrall, announced that there was a Master PRLS Class for anybody interested coming up this Saturday, contact Carol or Heidi if interested; Sarah Ketchum continued her enthusiastic support of our Annual Fish Fry, we’re getting down to the wire and she is hopeful that tickets are being sold; the first (of many) Evening with Heart meetings was held and superstar fundraiser Meredith Fennacy is excited for what is on the horizon, the next organizational meeting is being held on Tuesday, Sept 3rd at 11am (prior to our regular meeting); Jamie Boucher offered up the opportunity to help out the Avocado Margarita Festival by selling/pouring beer, her “clip board” made the rounds with GREAT success; Rick Grantham announced that Thanksgiving is just around the corner and he will be starting to organize everybody for the annual Turkey Day meal; and, Nancy Guthrie hoped that people would join her in the Lighted Boat Parade meeting being held this Thursday, August 1st at 2pm at the Chamber office.
Fines have begun in full force – it seems like $20 is both the maximum and minimum fine to date. Maybe Prez David realizes that ATM’s only spit out $20’s? We all got to learn about baseball umpiring rules (as Prez David sees them anyway – I might have squabbled about a few if I’d been called upon to answer his ?’s – as I wasn’t, I let it go)
John Weiss introduced Gary Setting, the afternoon’s speaker. Gary works with The First Tee Program at Sea Pines Golf Resort and Golf Course (a business that his family has owned since 1979 and he since 2006). The First Tee Program aspires to become the world’s largest youth development program, quite a goal!! The Central Coast boasts 14 different courses from Paso to Nipomo that all participate in the program and all who focus on youth development. They run 4 sessions a year for 8 weeks each and try to instill 9 core values to the kids: Courtesy, Respect, Perseverance, Honesty, Integrity, Confidence, Responsibility, Judgment and Sportsmanship. First Tee has recently added 9 Healthy Habits: Physical – energy, play and safety; Emotional – vision, mind and family; and, Social – family, school and community. During their sessions, they discuss these core values and the kids talk about how they can utilize them today at the golf course but more importantly, in life. It was great to hear that no child is turned away as there are scholarships to help those unable to afford to participate. Gary ended his session by stating “First Tee is Little League, Only Better!!!” For us golfers, we can appreciate the work that Gary and First Tee is doing locally to help our kids grow up with the kinds of values that will help them now and far into the future!!!