Charity Golf Day a Hole in One!

Charity Golf Day a Hole in One!

This event has all the elements needed for a great day: time outdoors, a community working together, a bit of rivalry and sportsmanship, a chance to win something, and most importantly a cause that everyone can get behind.

In the opinion of many market users there is nothing better than a day on the green, and on the 15th of March our Charity Golf Day at the Heidelberg Golf Course promised exactly that. With fantastic weather overhead, the day was kicked off with a greeting from the Golf Committee Chairman, Joe Amalfi, who welcomed the players and acknowledged the great cause everyone was helping to support, DEBRA Australia.

DEBRA Australia is a foundation that helps those affected by a painful and life-changing disease called Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), and DEBRA family coordinator Simone Baird was kind enough to join us once again to remind us of how valuable this fundraising is. Simone’s daughter Eliza grew up with EB, and the struggles of this disease were something she had to watch her daughter go through every day. Eliza sadly passed away in 2017 before her 18th birthday. Simone’s story is touching and her own continued hard work with DEBRA is a great testament to the importance of this charity.

The knowledge of this worthy cause helped to spur this day to success, as did the community spirit of the golf teams that attended the event and the many volunteers from the Melbourne Market Lions Club, DEBRA, and Fareshare who helped to run the day. The players’ generosity and their competitive spirit came out in full force for the Nearest to the Pin and the Putting competition, as well as the CHEP Chipping Competition where accuracy was key. But the winners of the overall golf competition were the team from Toyota Material Handling, made up of Ray Derozario, Andrew Hopkins, Tom Machar, and Matt Godfrey.

Although the golf is always a central focus of this event, there was more excitement to come once the competition was over. Guests were treated to an extremely exciting giant raffle draw — with a prize pool of over $40,000, everyone holding a ticket in their hand felt they could walk home a lucky winner. The largest raffle prize, a brand-new Fiat 500, ended up going home with Paul Pavlou, Mr Fresh himself, so we would like to congratulate him on this great win. Unfortunately not everyone could be so lucky, but looking around the room it was clear that every guest was enjoying the fun and excitement.

Everyone who bought a ticket, attended the event, or contributed in some way should be proud to know that a total of almost $110,000 was raised on the day, and that will all go toward helping those with EB and making their life a little bit easier.

Winners:

Golf Competition — Toyota Material Handling team (Ray Derozario, Andrew Hopkins, Tom Machar, Matt Godfrey)

Nearest to the Pin — Angelo Telefono, “Mandrakes”, Castagna Steel team

CHEP Chipping — Wayne Baird, DEBRA team

Putting Competition — Steve Dundon, Timeless Watches team

Longest Drive — Adrian Pappas, “Pebbles”, Tony Carafa and Sons

Overall Golf Competition winners for 2019 from Toyota Material Handling: Andrew Hopkins, Tom Machar, Ray DeRozario, & Matthew Godfrey.