Bank of America Championship Donates $418,000
To Local Charities Despite 2006 Tournament Cancellation
Bank of America directs $50,000 from Champions Tour to
Nashawtuc Charities
& Champions Tour players directly donate $5,000 to The First Tee of
Massachusetts
For Immediate Release, November 9, 2006:
CONCORD, MA - The Bank of America Championship, an official event on the PGA TOUR's Champions Tour, is donating $418,000 to area charities this year despite the cancellation of the 2006 tournament due to flooding at Nashawtuc Country Club. This year's donation to local charities brings the total amount donated over the tournament's 26-year history to more than $4.5 million.
Within the total charitable giving, the Champions Tour made available $50,000 to Bank of America, which directed the funds to Nashawtuc Charities, Inc., for distribution to local non-profit organizations. Separate from the total is $5,000 donated by Champions Tour players to The First Tee of Massachusetts for its golf programs for area youth, which the players have been doing since 2002.
Bob Gallery, president, Bank of America Massachusetts, and Walter Lankau, president, Nashawtuc Charities, Inc., said the donations underscore the bank, tournament, Champions Tour and players' commitments to "giving back" to the community, a hallmark of Bank of America's involvement in professional sports and long-standing association with the PGA TOUR.
"Back in June when parts of Nashawtuc Country Club were under water," said tournament director Tracy West, "we - the tournament, corporate sponsors and Champions Tour - committed ourselves to ensuring that the charitable organizations we normally support would not suffer because the 2006 Bank of America Championship had to be cancelled."
"We've said this before, but it bears repeating," Gallery said, "that
philanthropic investment is among the most important ways that we
participate in the lives of our customers and the communities we serve.
By working with Nashawtuc Charities and the Champions Tour, we have had
the opportunity collectively to make a positive impact on the work of
local philanthropic organizations, and thanks to the dedication of many
individuals, that impact will be even greater this year despite the
tournament's misfortune."
Rick George, Champions Tour president, said the Tour's $50,000 donation
represents a realization of the stresses put on area businesses by the
tournament's cancellation, the importance of corporate partnerships to
the tournaments' charitable endeavors and especially Bank of America's
support of local philanthropic initiatives.
Considering the unusual circumstances surrounding this year's
tournament, Lankau was even more laudatory than usual in his praise of
the tournament's fans, sponsors and especially its thousand-plus
volunteers who stuck with the Bank of America Championship through
adversity and disappointment to help ensure the tournament could live up
to its historic generosity to local charities.
Fifty-two local charities in all will benefit this year from the Bank of
America Championship.
Those local charitable organizations that traditionally have received
donations from the Bank of America Championship and will again this year
include: Emerson Hospital; Hanscom Air Force Base-Project Concern; Boys
and Girls Club of Assabet Valley; The First Tee of Massachusetts; The
Genesis Fund; Concord-Carlisle Athletic Boosters; Francis Ouimet
Scholarship Fund; Greater Waltham Association for Retarded Citizens; and
Lincoln-Sudbury Athletic Boosters.
Other local charities that have been supported in the past by Bank of
America and that will receive donations this year include: A Place to
Turn; Friends for Tomorrow; Germantown Neighborhood Center; Greater
Worcester Food Bank; Loaves and Fishes; Marlborough Community Services;
Marlborough Food Pantry; MetroWest Boys and Girls Clubs; Stanley
School-Waltham; and The Italian Home for Children.
Since coming to Nashawtuc Country Club in 1984, the tournament has
donated consistently to about 40 charitable organizations annually in
eastern Massachusetts, with a focus on those in the Assabet Valley
region.
The Champions Tour players' donation of $5,000 to The First Tee of
Massachusetts has become customary over the past several years. The
donation comes from the players' Pro-Am winnings and is in addition to
the tournament's donation to The First Tee of Massachusetts.
The Bank of America Championship is the longest running 54-hole event on
the PGA TOUR's Champions Tour and the only Champions Tour tournament
played in New England. The twenty-seventh annual 2007 Bank of America
Championship takes place June 18-24 at Nashawtuc Country Club in
Concord. Tournament information is available at
www.bankofamericachampionship.com.
Bank of America
Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions,
serving individual consumers, small and middle market businesses and
large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset
management and other financial and risk-management products and
services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United
States, serving more than 55 million consumer and small business
relationships with more than 5,700 retail banking offices, nearly 17,000
ATMs and award-winning online banking with more than 20 million active
users. Bank of America is the No. 1 overall Small Business
Administration (SBA) lender in the United States and the No. 1 SBA
lender to minority-owned small businesses. The company serves clients in
175 countries and has relationships with 98 percent of the U.S. Fortune
500 companies and 80 percent of the Global Fortune 500. Bank of America
Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
www.bankofamerica.com
Nashawtuc Charities
Nashawtuc Charities is a 501c3 non-profit corporation. The main purpose
of the organization is to manage the PGA TOUR's Champions Tour
professional golf tournament held annually at Nashawtuc Country Club in
Concord, Massachusetts.
www.bankofamericachampionship.com
Champions Tour
The Champions Tour is a tax-exempt 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.
The Champions Tour will feature a minimum of 29 official events offering
$54.1 million in prize money in 2007 and its highest average purse ever
of $1.86 million. The Champions Tour's primary purpose is to provide
significant competitive and earnings opportunities for players age 50
and older; to protect the integrity of the game; and to help grow the
reach of the game in the U.S. and around the world. In addition to
providing competitive opportunities for its membership, Champions Tour
events also generate significant sums of money for charity. The
commissioner of the PGA TOUR is Tim Finchem. Rick George is president of
the Champions Tour. TOUR headquarters is in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
www.PGATOUR.com
Contact:
Nick Ingala, 115 Main St., Ste. 1C-A, North Easton, MA 02356
508-238-2800 Office, 508-238-2801 Fax, 617-291-3495 Cell, njingala@comcast.net
Joe Goode, Bank of America, 100 Federal Street, Boston, MA 02110
617.434.7314 Office, 781-799-6048 Cell, joseph.l.goode@bankofamerica.com
Jeff Adams, Director of Public Relations, Champions Tour
904-273-3397 Office, 904-273-3582 Fax, jadams@pgatourhq.com
