Tucsonans seeking a unique way to cap off Cinco de Mayo festivities can find it on the greens with the Tucson Breakfast Lions Club Annual Drive βForeβ Sight Golf Classic.
The event is May 7 at Forty Niner Country Club, 12000 E. Tanque Verde Road.
βIt is Cinco de Mayo weekend, so we are having margaritas and a tequila-tasting station along with a wonderful lunch and great prizes, raffles and a silent auction. It should be lots of fun. Everyone who plays in charity tournaments says we have one of the best there is for the $100 entry fee,β said Pete Weakland, co-chair of the tournament with Dom Dominice.
Now in its 12th year, the Drive Fore Sight is on a mission to raise at least $10,000 for two camps dedicated to those with a wide range of special needs: Camp Tatiyee and Camp Abilities.
The nonprofit Camp Tatiyee in Pinetop-Lakeside serves almost 600 campers ages 7 and older each summer, with programs that include arts, recreation and adapted sports such as swimming, archery and fishing. Sessions are tailored to those who are deaf and blind as well as campers with mental and physical challenges; a full-time medical staff and specially-trained counselors allow the camp to accommodate those with conditions such as spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injuries and amputees.
βThey have dances at night and do skits and have a campfire; it is a lot of fun for these kids and many of them are able to experience new activities that they wouldnβt normally get to try,β said Samantha Bossert, first vice president of the Tucson Breakfast Lions.
Camp Abilities is a comprehensive developmental sports and recreation camp closer to home at the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind. The camp serves children in middle school and high school who are blind, deaf or have multiple disabilities; it provides one-on-one instruction for adaptive sporting and recreational activities. Campers develop physical fitness and social skills while participating in sports such as beep baseball, swimming, tandem biking and bocce.
Weakland said both camps are designed to optimize individual potential of campers while providing their families with some respite time.
βThere is so much out there for able-bodied kids, but so very little for those with disabilities,β he said. βThese camps are very important not just to these kids, but to their families, who can have some respite themselves when they know their kids are being cared for well.β
Contact freelance writer Loni Nannini at ninch2@comcast.net
