By Sally Miskavige, Grand Forks Children's Museum Board Member
A while back I wrote about how the success of the Grand Forks Children’s Museum was in a large part due to the support of the community…that the community has come together to champion this goal of building a children’s museum here in Grand Forks. Today I am very grateful for the support of Oxford Realty, a full-service local real estate company in Grand Forks.
On Thursday, September 14, Oxford Realty hosted their annual golf fundraiser at the King’s Walk Golf Course, to support the Grand Forks Children’s Museum. Their goal was to raise $10,000 for the museum project. And while the dollars are still being counted, I am certain that the goal was achieved and likely exceeded!
Many thanks to Mike Opp and his great team at Oxford Realty. They put the event together, obtained so many sponsors, solicited lots of great silent auction items, and created an incredible and fun outing. Lunch, golf, dinner, silent auction…and so much more. Every hole had something interesting and unique, with on-course games. The event was a sell-out as every foursome was filled! It was wonderful to see so many from our community and local businesses participate for a great cause. Needless to say, everyone had a good time (no matter what the final scores were).
There were significant grand prizes for a hole-in-one on the two par 3’s…a $500,000 new construction home and on the second two par hole, a grand prize of $25,000. Hope that Oxford Realty had Lloyds of London insurance on that…not for me, of course, as I wasn’t even close.
And the winner for the day was…the Grand Forks Children's Museum! Once again, community spirit, community participation and community philanthropy made the museum project the true winner.
I love to play golf. Golf is emblematic of life. Sometimes you hit great shots, only to get a bad break and the ball lands where it isn’t supposed to. Sometimes you hit a bad shot, and thanks to the Golf Gods, the ball lands better than deserved or expected. Most importantly, golf is how you recover and move on from the last shot, both good and bad. Kind of like life…
Our project to build a children’s museum has had some ups and downs, and thankfully, mostly “ups”. Yet from every endeavor for this museum, we learn something, and we make better plans to go forward. And with many thanks to this community and the community spirit, we are close to achieving our goal.
This golf outing was a fantastic day and truly a winner! There was wonderful support from the community, from the sponsors and from Oxford Realty. Special thanks to Mike Opp and his team, and to Callie Wagner – who served as the lead organizer of this event, Tyler Axtman, Hillary Kempenich, Maura Tanabe, Kim Woods, Jared Vigen and all the sponsors, donors, and golfers. You are truly heroes among us.
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