Last Saturday, December 12th, 2015, the First Tee of Broward held an Open House at Weston Hills Country Club to provide families with an overview of their Golf Program. This NEW Program, which kicks off January 9th, is a nine week activity designed by First Tee of Broward and tailored for older teens and young adults with Autism and other related developmental disabilities. Cristina Miranda, founder of The HDS Foundation, has been working with the First Tee of Broward and the Golf Professionals at WHCC to launch this program locally.
The First Tee teaches Nine Core Values using Golf as the platform. These young players will be engaged in activities to teach and reinforce Honesty, Integrity, Sportsmanship, Respect, Confidence, Responsibility, Perseverance, Courtesy and Judgement, all values they can use throughout the entirety of their lives. Golf professional Dustin Stearns met the new players and immediately got them engaged. These teens and young adults had a wonderful day and bonding experience, having made plans to get together to meet at the movies at the close of the day. Families and other supporters were able to see firsthand what this program is all about.
Underwritten by The HDS Foundation and Global Business Brokers, this program hopefully will be the first of many. “Each day, our community is becoming more aware of opportunities such as this one. These types of activities offer this population not only like skills mentoring, but social activities that allow them to create new friendships. We want the community at large to embrace and support these types of events. It’s amazing to see the impact it has on the lives of so many.”
This program is offered at no cost to the players, and space is limited. For more information, please contact carla.otiniano@hdsoftware.com