While golf courses in Arizona have been allowed to remain open through the COVID-19 pandemic, it has left a great strain on employees. Many of them were laid off, furloughed or had their hours dramatically reduced. The employees at Sedona Golf Resort were no exception.
When that happened, Tom Schultz and the fellow golfers in SGR’s Friday Men’s Golf Game tried to figure out what they could do to help. The answer came from Schultz’s wife, Carolyn.
For the last year, one of the traditions the group has had is to put money into a hole-in-one jug, money that would go to whichever golfer recorded an ace during the men’s game. Schultz, who keeps the jug at home between the games, was one day approached by Carolyn, who was holding the jug.
Knowing that her husband and his golfing buddies were trying to help out the course’s employees, she placed it into her husband’s hands and said, “I have an idea of what you can do with the money in this jug. Why don’t you guys donate it to the employees at the Sedona Golf Resort?”
Schultz thought it was a great idea and started asking the other players if they agreed to relinquish the monies in the hole-in-one jug.
Everyone wholeheartedly agreed.
However, after the jug was opened and the money was counted, the golfers found that only $335 was in the jug, which would not be enough to sufficiently split among several employees.
That’s when a fundraising effort began.
“Guys started adding additional money to the fund,” Schultz said. “Within a 10-day period, we raised an additional $2,100 from the 22 golfers in our group plus some other golfers and neighbors who live on the golf course. All these people rallied to donate money to the SGR employees.
“We all felt really good about what we were doing. Nobody said no.”
The money, plus gift cards that were purchased by Fay, the wife of Sonny Whitehead, another one of the group’s golfers, was eventually handed out to 16 employees at SGR.
“The employees went crazy when we passed out the envelopes,” Schultz said. “It was really heartwarming.”
