Have a Heart

The Have a Heart Golf Tournament was an organ donor awareness event and a benefit for Nate G.'s family held on Sunday. My dear friend Kim organized the event with a ton of help from Nate's family, friends, and community members, including many generous donations from local businesses.



Nate and his family have had a rough time these past five months since bacteria was found around his heart in April that lead to his need of a new heart. Thankfully Nate's story has a happy ending: he received a heart transplant in early July. Unfortunately, there are many others that are not as fortunate as Nate and are still waiting for their second chance at life.

For more of Nate's story, check out his wife's blog about their journey here. To register to be an organ donor and for more information about being a donor, click here.



And now for some photos!



Everyone pitched in to get ready for the golfers to arrive. Nate's dad put up the Gold and Silver sponsor signs.



What is a golf tournament without mimosas? Actually, I wouldn't know. This was my first tournament. {Oh, and I don't golf.}



The ladies did a great job getting the golf teams signed in for the tournament. There were a lot of little odds and ends to tell the golfers, so it got kind of confusing.



There were 12 teams of 4 golfers. Each golfer paid to be in the tournament, and many of them were from local businesses that also bought one of the 18 + 1 holes.



Brock gave the teams a briefing before they all went to their assigned holes to begin the tournament.

Meanwhile...



Others stayed behind to set up for the raffle and after-party!



There were lots of amazing raffle prizes! I've been to a number of raffles and silent auctions in my day, and these raffle prizes were some of the best I've seen-- and a great value! I put in for a few of them. I was really hoping I would get the 1 hour massage + hair cut + facial package that was valued around $185.

Man, a massage sounds amazing...





The golfers thought so, too.



As did other attendees.



There was also a bike show-off... so I couldn't resist getting a few snapshots.



This is one of my favorite shots of the day. There's Nate's parents on the left, his wife, Gen, sitting on the floor, and Nate with his daughter. When I think about what must be going through Nate's mom's and wife's minds while watching him with his little girl... well, it just gets me down-right teary eyed!



And then here comes the wonderful Kim... you can't see her hand, but she's waving the generous donations from the raffle and tournament proceeds. Needless to say, Gen was a bit shocked.

It was an amazing event. I was completely humbled by the displays of generosity that came from the community to support Nate and his family.

Many, many props go out to Kim and her husband Brock for being inspired to put on this event and to make it happen with such huge success!