Our 2020 FATC Charity Dinner held Monday, January 27th was a HUGE success!! 80 FATC members and friends attended our biggest event of the year to support our three charities; Casting for Recovery (women w/breast cancer), Project Healing Waters (active duty and retired military with disabilities) and the Mayfly Project (mentoring foster children through fly fishing). We broke our old record for donations by A LOT!!! Due to your generosity we brought in slightly over $7000 for our charities. That number destroyed our old record – THANK YOU!!
We packed the Forest Park Golf Club and had over $6000 worth of some awesome raffle gifts from our sponsors and members. The night started with our members buying their raffle tickets and checking out the many super items they had a chance to win. Once Kenny, our Chairman of the Board, got them settled down and in their seats. He welcomed everyone and introduced the guests and newest members to the FATC. He also introduced the new Board members and had them stand and be recognized. Afterwards Terry Seaton said a prayer for our meal, our fellowship and also Miles Meyer who was recently hospitalized and then we all ate a fantastic meal.
The charity dinner started out with gifts for the outgoing secretary, John Walker, and the member at large, Jerry Lybarger. Then our awards for the 2019 year were announced. This year’s Bob Chott “Servants Heart” award went to Steve Baker and Bill Byington received the Lew Smith “Spirit of Fly Fishing” award. Two special awards were handed out for work that was down on our biggest project too date, the Raise the Roof project. The Chairman’s award for “going above and beyond” went to Tim Klotz and Dave Beerbower.
The rest of the evening was full of awesome fellowship as guys got to renew old friendships and make new ones. Our first ever auction was held for a bamboo rod worth over $1000. It was a battle between Terry Seaton and John Best as John “bested” Terry and won the rod for $750 – a bargain! The silent auction for a Redington Crux rod was won by Tony Kalinowski. The rest of the evening was filled with all different raffle item winners. As Helen, one of our waitresses, did the honors of selecting the names of the winners. Pictures of the winners are included below.
A big thanks to Amy Milne and Lexi Parks for setting up our great evening at the club. And kudos to Hershel, Helen, Sam and Mike for their excellent service. Although we didn’t get to meet them a special thanks to our chefs Michelle and Beth for one of the best meals we’ve ever had.
Thanks to all of you that attended, and I hope that you had an enjoyable evening of fun and fellowship!!
