Chitimacha Louisiana Open awards $195,000 to regional charities, groups

Chitimacha Louisiana Open awarded $195,000 in checks to 68 different local and regional charities and youth groups Tuesday, both numbers reflecting huge increases over the previous year and continuing the event’s dedication to charitable giving.
Open officials presented the funds at a luncheon at the Petroleum Club in Lafayette’s Oil Center as the symbolic end to the tournament’s year-long activities. The presentations came on what Open officials called “the tournament’s most important day of the entire year.”
The PGA’s Web.com Tour event celebrated its 23rd renewal in March at Le Triomphe Golf & Country Club. The tournament is the area’s single largest charitable event and has contributed over $2 million in actual dollars to local and regional charitable causes over the past decade. This year’s total brings the overall charity contribution in the tournament’s 23-year history to nearly $4.5 million.
“This is why we’re here,” said Open executive director Danny Jones after he and Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana chairman John Paul Darden distributed checks from the Open and other events conducted during the 2013-14 fiscal year. “We may not be the biggest community on the Web.com Tour, but I think we make the biggest impact in our community.
“This is a better day even than Championship Sunday when we honor our champion, because we get to see the difference we’re making. The tournament brings professional golf to South Louisiana, but our primary goal is to make an impact on the community and to raise as many charity dollars as we can. Today we got to see those dollars at work.”
The Chitimacha Louisiana Open is one of only two PGA Tour-sponsored events in Louisiana and is one of the five oldest tournaments on the Web.com Tour (formerly known as the Nationwide Tour). Over the past decade, it has served as the kickoff event for the U.S. segment of the Web.com Tour and therefore draws one of the strongest fields of the Tour’s nine-month season.
Representatives from many of the 68 charities and groups were on hand to accept the Open’s contributions. Most of those groups were involved in the staging of the tournament in some capacity, as part of the hundreds of volunteers who make the Open possible.
“We have incredible volunteers,” Jones said. “It’s not like we just give them a check. They’re out there working, and actually generating their own funds. We’re just their vehicle that allows them to do that.”
In all, more than 100 charities and groups have benefited from the Open in its history, and a huge percentage of those are based in the Acadiana area and are aimed at youth causes.
“We’re about helping kids,” Jones said. “There are so many groups that help us put on the event, but these groups do great work all yearlong. It’s very special to us when we can help them, because we know it’s making a difference in a lot of lives”
“Non-profits have taken a big hit in the past few years. If we can help, we’re going to do that. There are so many moving parts to a tournament, and we can’t thank these groups, the sponsors and the volunteers enough. Without them, we wouldn’t have a tournament.”
The tournament awarded just over $158,000 to 55 charities and groups last year. This year, Jones said the tournament’s charitable giving was up over 23 percent compared to last year and the number of charities and groups benefiting from the tournament was up 24 percent. Total donations have risen every year since the 2009 economic downturn.
“We’ve fought through some very difficult times,” Jones said. “By most Web.com Tour standards, our total of over $800,000 over the last five years would be exceptional. But it’s not where we want to be. Our goal is to continue to work to make the tournament better and to get back where we were a few years ago when we were putting a quarter-million into our charities’ pockets.”