Sunshine Kids 2010 Holiday E-card

Happy Holidays from The Sunshine Kids and Prudential Premier Real Estate!

2010 Sunshine Kids Photos!

Michelle's SSK Experience!

My first Sunshine Kids Golf Tournament!

This year was my very first year of actually being able to attend the Sunshine Kids Golf Tournament. The day was filled with so much happiness and laughter that my cheeks actually hurt when I went home! The golf players had such a great time and really enjoyed the side games many of the Realtors offered. I helped with the croquet game. This game offered an extra entry for the door prizes so I think every player came to try their luck or shall I call it “skill” at croquet.

What a great day we had! Tons of laughter, jokes and some GREAT golf scores! Beautiful weather kept the temperature perfect and gave us all a bit of a tan. Oxbow is absolutely gorgeous with a staff that was so friendly and helpful. Oh and I found out that NOT everyone should drive a golf cart. Trust me on this!

Everyone got along as though they were old friends. Even if this was the first year they had attended the tournament. There was a sense of togetherness that I’m not sure I can explain. But when we all came together for the awards presentation where Daryl and Lyn spoke about our special Sunshine Kids, I looked around the room at these wonderful people who came together this one day to support our Sunshine Kids and I felt humbled.

I’m so privileged and proud to be a part of Sunshine Kids. Can’t wait for next year!

Birdie Boyz Bust Out The Drivers For The Kids!

Last summer I received a phone call to partake in a golf tournament. A golf tournament is just a golf tournament and I wasn’t overly excited to play until Megan Messer told me it was for a superb organization, called the Sunshine Kids Foundation, which helps these astonishing kids do activities and trips when they are undergoing cancer treatments! I couldn’t say YES fast enough! I rounded up a team that included: me, my dad, and a couple of his buddies. The Birdie Boyz were born!

We had an excellent time and couldn’t have asked for anything to be different. This tournament had a fantastic turnout and was a blast! The weather was perfect! 80 degrees, slight breeze, and outstanding personnel that hosted this tournament! Oxbow country club was in tremendous shape! Fairways were plush and the greens were fast! A golfers dream!

We ended up playing very well and had an exceptional time these kids are incredibly strong and the least I can do is hit a couple balls to raise money to help their cause.

I have received the call to defend our title and I am doing everything I can to get the team back and bring it home for the kids once more!

I urge you to get involved! Whether it is putting for par or cheering on the sidelines, come out and enjoy a wonderful afternoon in the sun!

Andy Glass

Sunshine Kids Update!

The Sunshine Kids Foundation is an amazing organization. The Foundation provides 10 national trips each year for young cancer patients from various hospitals across the nation. The trips sound like great fun! Las Vegas Getaway. Broadway Shows. New Orleans. Florida. Colorado ski trips. The kids travel with a caregiver...no parents are allowed! The reason for that is it gives these kids a chance to be independent and develop their self-confidence. Oncology doctors say that it's a proven fact that self-confidence is a major factor in the healing process. The trips also give the kids a chance to interact and make friends with kids who are going through the same thing they are. It's an awesome experience for them and they make life-long friends.

The Foundation provides these trips free of charge to both the families and the medical institutions. The average cost per person for the trips, depending on the medical care required, is somewhere between $7500 and $10,000 per kid. Sunshine Kids is funded solely by donation. So you can see that the funds that are raised through events like our golf tournament are essential to providing these great kids with an life-changing experience!

We are so grateful for the many, many people and businesses who participate in our tournament! We'd love to see you there this year!!!

Approaching the 1 Month Mark!

We are fast approaching the 1 month mark to our tournament and we still have spots to fill! We need golfers and teams and any of the different sponsorship opportunities! This is not only going to be a fun, sunny day to golf one of the nicest courses in the area, but also to raise money to help kids IN OUR AREA. Yes, you heard me correctly. This fall we are sending off a few lucky kids from the FM and surrounding communities on a Sunshine Kids trip! All because of the money raised at last years event. So....in order to send more kids and keep the positive, fun activities for them to enjoy we need you to help. Sign up to golf, sponsor a hole and help us help these special kids. While I know we live in a community of people with big giving hearts sometimes it is hard to find time to do any sort of volunteering, etc so if you can do one thing this summer, choose this. It is money that is tax deductable and you get to have a fun day on the golf course with your friends or coworkers all to benefit children with cancer.

Megan Messer

Sunshine Kids Video

Side Games and Local Ties

"> Since I'm not a golfer, I've enjoyed working the tournament each year. Last year Connie Dreyer was recovering from shoulder surgery, so she was on the sidelines with me. We had a little game on the 10th hole and we had a great time with the golfers as they waited their turn to hit. Relaxing in the sun between golfers wasn’t bad either!

Some golfers played the game, some just took the opportunity to relax in their cart. The money we raised with the game also went directly to The Sunshine Kids and although it's not a huge amount, it's still making a difference.

This year, the money we raise will be used to treat kids from our surrounding area who are being treated at Roger Maris Cancer Center to a day excursion, an out of town trip or some other type of event. Eventually, I hope to meet some of these kids, as well as the nurses who accompany them on these special days. My hope is that these kids and their families let us become a small part of their lives as our participation with Sunshine Kids grows.

Cat Yokom

The Teams

We are up to 5 confirmed teams!

It's for the kids!!!

The Founding- The Sunshine Kids Foundation was founded by Rhoda Tomasco in 1982 while she was serving as a volunteer in the pediatric cancer unit of a hospital in Houston, Texas. After seeing the loneliness and depression among children during their extended hospital treatments, Rhoda had a vision to provide these young cancer patients with opportunities to participate in positive group activities which promoted self-esteem , personal accomplishment and just plain old fashioned fun! Today, that vision has been realized many times over, as thousands of children from hospitals across the country have reaped the benefits of The Sunshine Kids Foundation’s many programs and national and regional events. Funded by personal contributions, corporations and foundations, the Sunshine Kids continues, as it has since its inception, to provide all of its activities completely free of charge to the children’s families and hospitals. For more information about Sunshine Kids visit www.sunshinekids.org

A beautiful setting!

Oxbow Country Club is the location of the Sunshine Kids Golf Tournament and we thought you should know what you are getting into! “Oxbow is a professionally designed golf course created by one of today’s most accomplished golf course architects Robert Trent Jones JR. His use of ponds and the famous "Oxbow" lend challenging playability features and natural beauty to the course. To that end, perhaps one of the most dramatic finishing holes in the upper Midwest is #18 at Oxbow Country Club. Known as the "beauty and the beast", a four par which requires two strategic shots over water to make the green challenges even the scratch golfers.”

Being a members only course Prudential Premier Real Estate and the Sunshine Kids event will get you on this amazing course and go where few scramblers have gone before. Be sure to come out and have a blast in the natural escape that is Oxbow Country Club.

For more information about Oxbow Country Club visit them at www.oxbowcc.com