In 2021, Welcome Home Military Heroes Founder Robert Tolan worked with Band of Brothers’ Founder Jeff Stone, creating a golf tournament in the span of five weeks.
“We had quite a bit of mistakes last year; none of us had ever played in a golf tournament. None of us had even really played golf,” Tolan recalled. “There was never a golf tournament [for veterans] on the Central Coast, and we just decided to go for it.”
After overselling last year’s event and learning from their mistakes, the two organizations are hosting another sold-out Tee it Up for Veterans golf tournament at the Santa Maria Country Club followed by a dinner and live auction on Veterans Day, Nov. 11. All of the benefits will go toward the two Central Coast-based organizations, he said.
During the pandemic, Band of Brothers and Welcome Home were two of the only organizations offering vets services, and funds were running thin, Tolan said. They decided to hold a golf tournament because it could raise a lot of funds to continue operating.
“The other reason is we knew a golf tournament would bring in a completely different crowd: people who didn’t know about Welcome Home or Band of Brothers. It was a mission to expand out to individuals who never heard of us, and let them know what’s going on in the veteran community,” he said.
Band of Brothers is a Santa Maria-based organization that offers a house for homeless veterans and sports clubs where veterans can travel and play against other sports teams, Tolan said. Welcome Home primarily operates in SLO County and offers welcome home packages for all military members returning from deployment, military member care packages, and veteran funeral services.
Tolan and Stone met while playing in a veterans softball league and Stone asked if he wanted to collaborate with Band of Brothers, Tolan said.
“Welcome Home and Band of Brothers have worked together in the past. [We] put up flag poles for free, and replaced about 500 flags in the last two years,” he added.
Now, the two nonprofits have 152 people playing in the tournament, about 40 volunteers, and are expecting 250 people for the dinner and live auction, Tolan added.
During last year’s tournament, Tolan said they raised $25,000 for each organization—the largest donation received in Band of Brothers’ history.
“My goal is for us to bring in more than $25,000. I want to break that record again; anything over $25,000 is amazing for both organizations,” Tolan said.
Although the tournament is sold out, Tolan added that sharing the organizations on social media is a helpful way to get their messages out to the public and promote future events—which can be found on their respective websites and Facebook pages.
“It’s great for all our members, especially our veterans on Veterans Day, [to be] with a bunch of people having fun. It’s an absolutely gorgeous and overall fun event,” Tolan said. “The planning is hard and it’s been long, but the day of the event is absolutely a blast.”
Highlights
• Dignity Health’s Marian Community Clinic celebrated 25 years of operating with the grand opening of a new location. On Nov. 10, clinic physicians and staff along with Santa Maria Mayor Alice Patino and ambassadors of the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce attended a ribbon cutting ceremony and hosted an open house with clinic tours, live music, and refreshments. The Marian Community Clinic is the largest clinic network on the Central Coast. It first opened in 1997 and was the first of nearly 50 primary care and specialty clinics in the area. After more than two decades, the clinic moved into a new modernized space, at 1745 N. Broadway, which includes an onsite lab.
• Santa Barbara County nonprofit CommUnify was named a “2022 Top-Rated nonprofit” by GreatNonprofits, the leading website for community recommendations of charities and nonprofits. The award is based on the rating and number of reviews that CommUnify received from volunteers, donors, and aid recipients. GreatNonprofits is the largest donation website for nonprofits where people share stories about their personal experiences with more than 1.6 million charities and nonprofits.
Staff WriterTaylor O’Connor wrote this week’s Spotlight. You can reach her at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 10-17, 2022.
