Mercy Mercy Me

For those who are regular visitors to this blog it is no surprise of my desire to create a national junior golf program for pediatric hospitals around the country.  This goal stems from the amount of good I see being done for the kids at Ranken Jordan on a weekly basis.  The benefits do no revolve around exposing them to a game they will be able to play once they leave the hospital.  These kids are seeing social, emotional, and physical benefits simply from being included in our golf program.  One of the kids in the program commented that "being involved in the golf program allowed me to have fun with people I know and love very much."  These are the types of benefits that often go unnoticed or unrecognized and should be available to kids in pediatric hospitals everywhere.

Recently I had the opportunity to visit Mercy Children's Hospital in St. Louis, MO, and help some of their kids play putt-putt golf on a cool summer day (those of you in St. Louis know how rare this is!).  The Gateway PGA Section partnered with the hospital during their Benefit 4 Kids week and three of our Section's Golf Professionals provided golf instruction for a couple of hours.  During the two hours we spent at the hospital we had over 20 kids come to the courtyard and take their turn on the putt-putt course that had been laid out for their enjoyment.  Many of the kids had played golf before; many had not.  It quickly became apparent to all those watching that it really didn't matter who had or had not played golf.  Each and everyone of the kids were having fun, playing like kids should play, laughing, and smiling.

During our time at Mercy we took a break from the "tough" duty outside to go visit a young man going through a several month cancer treatment.  One of the staff members told us he asked for us to come in to talk since he was unable to get out of bed.  When we got to his room we learned that he really had no knowledge of golf, had only been to the driving range once or twice, but one thing he has is the desire to learn more about golf.  He voluntarily filled us in on how he received his diagnosis, what his treatments would entail, and how long his hospital stay would be.  The entire time he was describing his situation he had a smile on his face and was incredibly positive.  Here we were supposed to be helping him and he was the one helping us!  While walking back to the courtyard to continue helping the other kids one of the nurses caught up to us and told us that we had "made his week" by stopping to talk.  I disagreed and told her it was the other way around.

These are the types of stories that could and should be told on a regular basis.  I want to hear these stories coming from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Orlando, Houston, Denver, Phoenix, San Francisco, etc.  Too many kids are facing and valiantly battling medical issues that no child should have to endure.  Our game has the ability to help these kids simply be kids.  Why shouldn't we do what we can to help them through their situation?  There are plenty of companies out there who could make this possible.  The positive public relations that company would receive cannot be bought.  Are you with a company that has a national reach and want to positively impact the lives of thousands of kids each year?  Contact me and I will gladly tell you how that can happen.