Last school year, students at Panther Lake Elementary School, along with a handful of others in the Kent School District, got their first swing at a new program designed to introduce kids to the game of golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fabulous,\u201d said Panther Lake physical education teacher Coleen Schlichte. \u201cMy kids loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But like the grown-up version of the game, golf does not come cheaply. The special equipment used as part of the First Tee program that teaches golf to children runs almost $3,000 per set.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would never had that in my budget to afford this,\u201d Schlichte said.<\/p>\n
But following a story last spring in the Kent Reporter about the program at Kent Elementary, members of the Meridian Valley Country Club decided to host a fundraiser to try and raise the money to bring the program to 10 of Kent\u2019s Elementary Schools.<\/p>\n
According to assistant pro Robyn Lorain, who first<\/p>\n
the program to the district, an anonymous club member even offered a $10,000 matching donation.<\/p>\n
The club hosted a fundraiser auction and tournament in August and when all was said and done, Meridian Valley had raised more than enough money.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really had no idea what to expect,\u201d Lorain said, adding \u201cEverybody wanted to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In total, Meridian Valley raised $104,000 during their fundraiser. It was the first private club to host such a fundraiser and members officially presented the check to the Kent School Board in October.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe exceeded our expectations and had enough money to fund all schools in the Kent School District,\u201d Lorain said.<\/p>\n
The money will pay for the equipment – bright plastic golf clubs designed for kids and a series of velcro targets with special balls – as well as training for teachers. The program is expected to be fully integrated by early next year.<\/p>\n
Lorain said the First Tee program is based around the \u201cNine Core Values\u201d of honesty, integrity, sportsmanship, respect, confidence, responsibility, perseverance, courtesy and judgment, all of which come into play both in life and on the golf course, where there are no judges or referees and each player is trusted to keep their own score.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe like to relate these skills to what happens in everyday life,\u201d Lorain said. \u201cWe want to teach these kids golf skills as well as life skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
But because golf requires special equipment, as well as greens fees to play, the sport can sometimes be out of reach to some families. By bringing First Tee into the schools, all of the kids in the Kent district will get to take a swing at the game, its supporters hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis provides an opportunity to a lot of students that might otherwise not have access to the game,\u201d Lorain said.<\/p>\n
Along with teaching the values, Schlichte said golf meets the state-mandated essential academic learning requirement and grade level expectation of \u201cstriking consistently to a specific area using a manipulative.\u201d Schilchte also said it keeps the kids active almost the whole time they are in class and she can use it to teach fair play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt moves quickly. I can get all my kids on task and involved and it is a good teamwork activity,\u201d she said, adding \u201cIt also teaches them those life skills you want: fair play, working as a team, taking turns.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last school year, students at Panther Lake Elementary School, along with a handful of others in the Kent School District, got their first swing at a new program designed to introduce kids to the game of golf. \u201cIt was fabulous,\u201d said Panther Lake physical education teacher Coleen Schlichte. \u201cMy kids loved it.\u201d But like the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":223,"featured_media":18998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18997"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}