It’s nine in the morning and junior golfers are rolling in for a 10 a.m. tee time. As they pull in the participants see branded Gateway PGA Junior signage and everything is ready to go. What they don’t see is the staff who arrived two hours earlier to create the clean look and the handful of cars needed to transport the necessary equipment.
Thanks to the team at Wentzville GM, the Gateway staff no longer has to borrow the van of Chairs of the board of the PGA REACH Gateway Foundation Mel and Sue Rector or take as many vehicles to events. Wentzville GM stepped up to the tee and sent a drive down the fairway as they donated a 2021 cargo van to help grow the game of golf on Tuesday, July 19, 2022.
Lamar Rucker, Plant Executive of Wentzville GM, handed the keys of a brand new cargo van to Foundation President, Ozzie Smith. The short ceremony took place in front of Foundation and GM staffs as well as members of local media. During the ceremony, Rucker emphasized GM’s commitment to the community and growing the community.
“People realize that golf is a place where they can be safe, can play and meet friends,” Sue Rector told KMOV, the local CBS affiliate. “The PGA REACH Gateway Foundation is so grateful to Lamar Rucker, the Plant Executive Director and his team at the Wentzville General Motors Assembly Plant for this generous donation. This cargo van will help our team so much, taking our golf programming to veterans and children throughout our large Gateway PGA Section.”
The PGA REACH Gateway Foundation was founded in 2007 and started programming in 2009. The mission of the Foundation states, “by inspiring and directing the resources of our golfing community, we will positively impact the lives of youth, military and diverse populations by enabling access to PGA professionals, PGA sections and the game of golf.”
“We were so happy and thankful to get a second van for all things junior golf,” Junior Tour Coordinator Jason Eisenhauer mentioned. “Our membership and thereby our junior golf offerings have grown so much over the last three years that we’ve added a new staff member to junior golf and it was only natural that we needed a second vehicle. I used to stress out on how I was going to “Tetris” all the gear into my Mazda3 but thanks to GM my life is much smoother and now we can focus on the junior golfers.”
To learn more about the PGA REACH Gateway Foundation, you can visit their website at www.gatewaypga.org/pga-reach.