Champions Tour returns to North Shore Country Club, June 16-22
NORTHBROOK, IL – Encompass Championship Charities today announced the focus of its charitable giving for 2014 will be Chicago-area young people, and named four outstanding youth-oriented organizations as beneficiaries of this year’s tournament.
The youth organizations are:
• Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund
• Junior Achievement of Chicago
• JDRF
• The First Tee of Greater Chicago
Each charity will receive proceeds from the tournament to help finance their respective missions.
“Encompass Championship Charities is proud to designate these four outstanding youth-oriented organizations as beneficiaries of this year’s Encompass Championship,” said Encompass Insurance president Tom Ealy. “In their own unique ways, each of these charities is focused on improving the lives of young people and, by extension, the future of our community and our country.
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“Whether the charity’s goal is to cure disease, improve financial literacy, provide educational opportunities to disadvantaged children or to teach life skills, Encompass endorses and supports each one’s singular focus on improving the lives of young people,” Ealy said.
The second annual Encompass Championship Presented by Career Builder tournament will be played the week of June 16-22 at North Shore Country Club in Glenview, and is part of the PGA TOUR’s Champions Tour schedule for players age 50 and older. Last year’s winner, former Masters champion Craig Stadler, is looking forward to defending his title against other legends of the game.
In 2013, the inaugural Encompass Championship helped raise $211,800 for charity, according to tournament officials.
Encompass Championship tournament director Mike Galeski said he looks forward to working with all four organizations this year to help them maximize the value of their relationship with the event.
“Having become familiar with leaders of Daniel Murphy, Junior Achievement, JDRF and The First Tee of Chicago, I am convinced they will bring energy, spirit and a great sense of purpose to the Encompass Championship,” Galeski said. “I am very excited to work with them.”
Spokesmen for all four charitable organizations voiced their appreciation at having been named beneficiaries. Here is some background on each organization:
Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund The mission of the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund is to give high school scholarship assistance and educational support to Chicago students from economically challenged backgrounds. DMSF seeks to make a life-altering difference in the lives of its Scholars by providing them with the best opportunity to succeed in high school and college. DMSF works to ensure that financial constraints do not hinder a young person’s ability to obtain a quality education.
Junior Achievement of Chicago
Junior Achievement is the world’s largest organization dedicated to giving young people the knowledge and skills they need to own their economic success, plan for their future, and make smart academic and economic choices. JA programs are delivered by corporate and community volunteers, and provide relevant, hands-on experiences that give students from kindergarten through high school knowledge and skills in financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship. Junior Achievement of Chicago, chartered in 1940 and celebrating over 70 years of serving Chicago youth, is the largest JA office in the world and will reach 470,000 young people in 12 Chicago-area counties during the 2013-2014 school year.
The First Tee of Greater Chicago is a youth development initiative of the World Golf Foundation and is supported by the leading organizations in golf including the Masters Tournament, LPGA, PGA of America, PGA TOUR and United States Golf Association. There are nearly 200 chapters of The First Tee located throughout the country and in five international locations. Based out of Glenview, Ill., The First Tee of Greater Chicago chapter is a 501 (c) 3 charitable foundation dedicated to teaching the golf and life skills curriculum to young people.
JDRF is the leading global organization focused on type 1 diabetes (T1D) research. JDRF’s goal is to progressively remove the impact of T1D from people’s lives until we achieve a world without T1D. JDRF collaborates with a wide spectrum of partners and is the only organization with the scientific resources, regulatory influence and a working plan to bring life-changing therapies from the lab to the community. As the largest charitable supporter of T1D research, JDRF is currently sponsoring $530 million in charitable research in 17 countries.
The Encompass Championship will attract some of the most recognized names in golf, including World Golf Hall of Fame members Ben Crenshaw, Hale Irwin, Tom Kite, Bernhard Langer and Nick Price. Jeff Sluman and Chip Beck, both of whom live in the Chicago area, also are expected to compete along with Fred Couples, John Cook, Fred Funk, Jay Haas, Tom Lehman, Corey Pavin, Kenny Perry and Rocco Mediate.
North Shore Country Club, designed by the legendary British firm of Colt, MacKenzie and Alison, opened in 1924 and hosted the 1933 U.S. Open Championship as well as the 1939 and 1983 U.S. Amateur Championships, and the 2011 Western Amateur Championship.
For more information on the tournament, please visit www.Encompasschampionship.com.
About Encompass Insurance
Approximately 2,500 independent agencies sell Encompass’s signature package policy and other personal insurance products to consumers with broad protection needs. Part of the Allstate group of companies, Encompass is one of the few national insurers distributing through independent agents to exclusively provide personal insurance protection. More information can be found at www.encompassinsurance.com.
About CareerBuilder®
CareerBuilder is the global leader in human capital solutions, helping companies target and attract great talent. Its online career site, CareerBuilder.com®, is the largest in the United States with more than 24 million unique visitors, 1 million jobs and 50 million resumes. CareerBuilder works with the world’s top employers, providing resources for everything from employment branding and talent and compensation intelligence to recruitment solutions. More than 10,000 websites, including 140 newspapers and broadband portals such as MSN and AOL, feature CareerBuilder’s proprietary job search technology on their career sites. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI), Tribune Company and The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI), CareerBuilder and its subsidiaries operate in the United States, Europe, South America, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com.
About the Champions Tour
Collectively, the Champions Tour has the most recognizable and accomplished players in the game with many of its 30 members of the World Golf Hall of Fame competing regularly in its events and numerous other major championship winners among its members. The Champions Tour is a membership organization of professional golfers age 50 and older. Conceived in 1980 as the Senior PGA Tour, it started with just four events and purses totaling $475,000. Points earned in 26 official Charles Schwab Cup events in 2013 will determine the Charles Schwab Cup champion, the season-long competition designed to recognize the Champions Tour’s leading player. The Champions Tour’s primary purpose is to provide financial opportunities for its players, entertain and inspire its fans, deliver substantial value to its partners, create outlets for volunteers to give back, protect the integrity of the game and generate significant charitable and economic impact in communities in which it plays. In 2012, tournaments on all five Tours (PGA TOUR, Champions Tour, Web.com Tour, PGA TOUR Latinoamerica, PGA TOUR Canada) generated more than $122 million for local charitable organizations, bringing the TOUR’s all-time total of charitable contributions to more than $1.8 billion. The Commissioner of the PGA TOUR is Tim Finchem. Mike Stevens is President of the Champions Tour. The PGA TOUR’s website is pgatour.com, the No. 1 site in golf, and the organization is headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. Follow the Champions Tour at Facebook.com/Champions Tour and on Twitter @ChampionsTour.
Contact:
Mike Galeski
Tournament Director 760-803-5631 Michael.galeski@gmail.com
Barry Cronin
Media Relations, Encompass Championship 847-698-1801 bcronin@cronincommunications.com
Geralyn Thompson
Encompass Corporate Relations 847-402-8369 geralyn.thompson@encompassins.com
Michael Erwin CareerBuilder 773-527-3637
Michael.erwin@careerbuilder.com
