On Thursday September 22nd, we hosted our 23rd now- named The Mike McCann Charity Golf Tournament. Our dear friend and colleague Mike McCann passed away in February 2019 from cancer at age 63. Mike was known as one of the most charitable individuals in Ottawa and was the glue that worked and organized all our previous years’ golf tournaments. Today his legacy lives on through our team’s planning and execution of this great event every year.
With the popularity of this year’s tournament, our planning committee had to arrange for a second course to be booked. 360 golfers and sponsors joined us at the Meadows Golf & Country Club and Emerald Links. Golfers were greeted with a registration prize as they enjoyed coffee from Tim Hortons and lunch from Subito.
“BMO is very proud to be here, alongside some great other sponsors to support some great initiatives.” Michael Brodie from BMO Capital Markets is our Sapphire Sponsor.
Once the shotgun start went off at 12:00PM, golfers raced to their starting holes where they had the opportunity to win a variety of prizes on the course, including closest to the pin, hole in one, and more. Some of the charities on the course included Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa, The Ottawa Hospital Foundation, Ottawa Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, Sun Youth Organization, Christie Lake Kids, Youth Services Jeunesse , Royal Ottawa and Christie lake Kids. They were stationed at holes and had the chance to mingle and cheer on our golfers.
“It’s done so much helping to support low income kids to attend after school programs and camp programs and we were absolutely thrilled.” Natalie Benson director of fundraising and communications at Christie Lake Kids
After golfers completed their rounds, the evening began with a silent auction. This year, our silent auction had over 90 items, including a large selection of sports memorabilia, outdoor furniture, getaway packages, local items and more.
After a long day on the greens, everyone got to enjoy some amazing local cuisine from Angry Dragonz, Biagio’s Italian Kitchen, Big D’s Dog House, Si Senor, Foodie Lu and BeaverTails. Following dinner, the evening festivities kicked off with our popular MC and auctioneer Ryan Watson, entertaining the crowd and raising bids for our live auction!
As the sun started to set a rainbow appeared in the sky where we believe Mike McCann was watching closely to see the final number. Mike’s best friend and close colleague Mike McGahan, president and CEO of CLV Group and executive chairman of InterRent REIT revealed a cheque of $1,390,500! 100% of this amount will go to local charities within our communities. These charities include Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa, The Ottawa Hospital Foundation, Ottawa, Food Bank, Burlington Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Sun Youth Organization, Christie Lake Kids, Youth Services Jeunesse , Royal Ottawa , Moose Hide Campaign, Christie lake Kids and many more!
Thank you to all our generous golfers, sponsors, and charities for participating in the event. We hope that next year brings the same success and if not more!