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Help Change the Course of a Child's Life ... Golf!
by: Melissa Olson, Bridget Early, Alicia Tremaine and Summer Lozano


Introduction
Our community project started with a common idea and interest. The four of us really enjoy working with adolescents. Some of us work with kids at our internships; all of us have had experience in the past working with kids. We recognized that there is a concern in the area of crime and drug use among the adolescent population. We all felt privileged to have had the opportunity to play sports throughout our childhood. We felt that sports played a huge role in our lives and helped us stay out of trouble. We hypothesized that those who play sports may be less likely to get involved with drugs or other deviant behavior. We proceeded to research and come up with various ideas as to how we can help deter kids from committing crimes or getting involved with drugs.

Statement of Need
We researched the topic using interviews with professionals from our community. We also interviewed adolescents, accumulated sources from the Internet and newspaper. We have come to the conclusion that there is a great need for better intervention and prevention strategies for adolescents. Today, kids have easy access to guns and drugs. Through our research we have found that the media, movies, and TV shows have a negative impact on children. Violent films like, "natural born killers" and "pulp fiction" negatively influence kids. The unbelievable tragedy that took place in Littleton, Colorado is an example of what kids are confronted with today, leaving them confused, afraid, angry, and in some cases, hateful. There is no simple answer as to why these things happen or how we can stop them. However, we have learned that there are a few prevention strategies that are more crucial than others.

Description of the Intervention
Our intervention consisted of a benefit golf tournament called Help Change The Course Of A Child's Life... Golf! We chose to host a golf tournament in hopes that we would raise money to give to a cause that benefited children. We decided that we would donate the money to the Boys and Girls Club of Chico. The Boys and Girls Club is an agency which provides fun activities and a positive drug-free environment for the youth in our community.

We were not really sure about how to organize a golf tournament. We started by talking with a tournament director. He gave us many helpful suggestions on how to put together a golf tournament. The tournament was structured as a four-person scramble. Most people entered as teams, those who entered individually were placed on teams. Our biggest and most challenging job was to recruit players to participate in our golf tournament. The golf course charged us forty dollars for each participant. Therefore, we decided on an entry fee of sixty dollars per person. This fee included golf carts and sack lunches for the players. After all of the costs were given to the golf course, we actually made fifteen dollars from each person which was given to the Boys and Girls Club. Our marketing included posting fliers around the Chico state campus, in local golf related stores, and on bulletin boards in other various areas. Bridget and Melissa were featured on the local news station Channel 24, where they promoted the tournament. In addition, an advertisement was placed in the golf section of the newspaper.

Our group enjoyed putting on the golf tournament and we were quite happy with the results. All of the competitors said that they had enjoyed themselves as well. We gave a $25 gift certificate to the Pro Shop and a $10 gift certificate to the pool hall to each member of the winning team. We also had a "longest drive" and "closest to the pin" contest. The winners of these events won a $20 gift certificate to the Pro Shop. We were able to provide each competitor with a prize of golf balls, tees, and a ball marker. Our proceeds from the golf tournament totaled $950.00. In addition to those who paid to play, there were some individuals who gave us a general donation.

Evaluation of the Intervention


Reflections on the Project
Now that the golf tournament is over, we are able to look back and admire the successful outcome of our community project. Hard work, desire, and excitement were the key ingredients to this project. We started the project discouraged due to some of the negative responses that community members had expressed. One woman stated that golf tournaments not only take a lot of time and money to organize, but the outcome solely relies on the response from the community. Many times the response from the community is minimal due to the high level of competition between golf tournaments. As a group we decided that we would go ahead with planning our golf tournament anyway. We believed that as long as we put forth an honest effort, we would have nothing to lose.

Reflecting back on our process, we realized that word of mouth was our most powerful tool in recruiting players. Although we distributed hundreds of fliers, the people who we had direct contact with turned out to be the ones who participated. In the beginning we hoped to have at least sixteen participants in our tournament. To our surprise, we had a total of twenty golfers in our tournament. Although twenty players are typically a low turnout for a golf tournament, we were pleased and felt that it was great for our first time.

The day of the tournament was very exciting. Everyone seemed to have a great time and everything went exactly as planned. We could not have asked for anything better and were definitely satisfied with the result of our hard work. We only hope that future social work students have the desire to continue with our community project. We strongly believe that as the years go by, the need for our community project will still exist. Through increased community awareness of our tournament, our project will only grow larger. Since today's youth are our society's future, we hope that more and more people will want to contribute to this cause. We are proud to inform our community that the children of Chico benefit from this project. We hope that the new activity center at the Boys and Girls Club turns out to be a great success!

References
Adler, P.(1994). Social Reproduction and the Corporate Other: The Institutionalization of After School Activities. Sociological Quarterly. 35(2)309-329

Brady, P. (1998). The Role of Physical Activities Throughout the Lifespan: Implications For Counselors and Teachers. The Journal Of Humanistic Education and Development. 36 (4). 234-246.

Gilbert, L., Hammermeister, J., page, R., Scanlan, A. (1998). Is School Sports Participation a Protective Factor Against Adolescent Health Risk Behaviors? Journal of Health Education. 29(3), 186-192

McGinnis, J. (1997). Guidelines for School and Community Programs to Promote Lifelong Physical Activity Among Young People. Journal of School Health. 67(6), 202-220.

McNeal, B. (1998) High School Extracurricular Activities: Closed Structures and Stratifying Patterns of Participation. The Journal of Educated Resource. 91(3), 183-92

Siegenthaler, K., Gonzalez, L., Leticia, G. (1997). Youth Sports as Serious Leisure; A Critique. Journal of Sport and Social Issues. 21(3), 298-315

The Integrative and Physiological Effects of Sport Participation; A Study of Adolescents. Sociological Quarterly. 33(4), 637-649

Therapeutic Recreation Programs For Adolescents In Substance Abuse Treatment Facilities. The Journal of Rehabilitation. 62(4), 10-17

Walling, A. (1996). Sports Participation And Emotional Health In Teens. American Family Physician. 54(6), 2077-2079

Interviews

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