Hole in One Hundred

More than 100 golfers, volunteers, students and dinner guests attended last week's 15th Annual Cabrini Connections Golf Benefit. You can read about staff members' experiences here. It was a wonderful day by all accounts.

The bulk of my day was spent with 2006 CC alumnus Jonathan Summers (left). In the morning, Jonathan and I rode around in a cart taking pictures and chatting up the golfers. Later in the day, we were assigned to keep an eye out for holes in one on hole #11. If you enter the hole in one contest and are miraculously successful, you win one of several trip packages. There would be no lucky strokes this year, though.

I am very thankful for the opportunity to get to know Jonathan better. He and I spent about four hours together on the course and we were talking almost the whole time. He's 22 and I'm 23, so it turns out we're a lot alike. And to hear him reminisce about Cabrini Connections with such joy really brought the event full circle for me.

Good spirits continued into the evening as a full course dinner was served and guests surveyed an array of silent auction items. Being that this was my second golf benefit, I saw a lot of familiar faces throughout the day, but I met a lot of new people, too. I had lunch with Mike Schuba, Chris Schuba, Mike McNicholas, and Sean McNicholas. I had dinner with Andrew Giordano, Andrew Krantz, Dennis Nevinski, and Jim Flood. From our program, we had three mentors, Mike Jozwik, Jen Jozwik, and Mike Hayes, play together, and Thursday night mentor Shannon Murphy (pictured below, left, with her team of friends and family) was on hand as a volunteer.

Shannon's impact goes far beyond the day of the event, though. She volunteered to be on the planning committee several months ago and, with her event planning experience, became an integral part of the process. I really hope she continues this service in 2011 and beyond. It was her first year in this role, but I already don't know what we would do without her. Her actions are a great example of the "above and beyond" mentality we hope to find in volunteers. Thank you, Shannon!

Thank you to everyone who had a part in this year's golf benefit, from the $5,000 event sponsor Northbrook Bank & Trust Company, all the way down to you reading about the golf benefit here and mentioning it to a friend. We are all one big network and I am happy to count you as part of the Cabrini Connections family. As always, best wishes and thanks for reading!

P.S. I won an authentic Chicago Blackhawks "Antti Niemi" Stanley Cup jersey at the silent auction! Here is Walt Vincent, the man who donated it, showing me the fight strap which is unique to authentic jerseys.