Following the 2024 debut of the Children’s Justice Center of Carbon and Emery Counties golf tournament fundraiser, the Friends of the CJC board is bringing the event back bigger and better than before. Set for June 21, the tournament aims to give back to the children and families utilizing the center.
CJC board members Shelly Wright, Laura Milchak, Casey Wilson and Alycia Sandoval joined the KOAL newsroom to preview the event.
Held at the Carbon Country Club, the tournament costs $500 per team – which covers green and cart fees – and operates in a four-man scramble format. Additionally, sponsorship packages are available to help promote businesses while giving back to the cause. “It’s a bronze, silver, or gold sponsorship package, which also would include dinner tickets and logos on all of our advertising,” explained Sandoval.
The tournament also allows the children who use the center to get involved through specialty-painted golf balls. “What we’d like to do is we thought it would be so fun if we had the children that use the center do some sort of painting on a golf ball and say thank you to our sponsors, the people that come out to support the event and support the center all year round,” said Wright,” And that way the golfers, you can actually use those golf balls during that particular hole and swing away.”
The tournament also features a more public fare on the same night, with a charity dinner and concert being presented. “We’re really excited because we have Natural Causes coming down. And if you haven’t seen Natural Causes, they are incredible. They do music for just about any genre,” shared Wilson. “We’re going to have prize drawings for all ages, including kid drawings. So everybody has a chance to win prizes and it’s going to be a blast. And we just hope that we can get the word out and everybody will show up and support the cause because it’s going to be a really fun night.”
Wright, who serves as the CJC’s director, explained the CJC’s goal: “The Children’s Justice Center is where we really focus on the treatment of child abuse. And it starts from the investigative stages, and goes through the process of putting together a team to wrap services around the child and the family. That involves trauma therapy that we provide and we also have a medical program that we utilize to make sure that kids are going to be OK.” Wright added,” The Family Support Center is the other part of our program, and we really focus on child abuse prevention services.”
The funds from the tournament and concert benefit the programs offered by the CJC,” They help offset costs that our contracts don’t fund. Or if our contracts run out of funds toward the end of the year, we can use the Friends money to support utility expenses, training expenses, supplies and equipment. In the past, we have had the Friends fund, and there are so many things that we currently have at the center. And then sometimes we have families that need particular things. And if we’re working with a family and we can help them with resources in their home or whatever, we can utilize some Friends dollars for that.”
Milchak jumped in to discuss her favorite part of volunteering with the CJC: ” My favorite thing about the Children’s Justice Center and volunteering is just knowing that we’re helping. We’ve helped with playground equipment, we’ve helped with our forensic interviewer and to know that these services are available for these kids, it just means the world to us.”
Sandoval echoed this sentiment: ” To be able to help our children in our community, knowing that there are some really awful things that can happen to our kids and trying to protect them. I love to be involved in something that I know in someone’s worst time period, especially for a child. There’s someone there to have their back, and so we want that’s what I want to be there for: I want to make sure that they’re cared for.”
To register for the second annual CJC golf fundraiser, call 435-650-5236 or email friendsofcjc@gmail.com.
