Friday afternoon Family Connection held their first Birdies for Backpacks charity golf tournament.

Family Connection works with about a dozen programs yearly such as, Darkness to Light, the Literacy Bus, GED scholarships and many more, but the Backpack children’s program is one of their largest programs.

The Backpack program works with child hunger and child poverty. Students have to be recognized by a teacher, counselor or social worker as a child with need and nominated to be in the backpack program. The program will then send her a bag of groceries every Friday home in her backpack for the entire school year.

The program begins with approximately 100 students and usually ends the year with 150 students.

Every dime raised from the charity golf tournament went towards the purchase of food for the backpacks. Ronnie Burke, director of Family Connection believes they raised between $3,900-$4,000, which will be of significant help, because they food usually costs $12,000 annually.

Burke is thankful for all the sponsors who have helped put this together Inland, First Port City Bank, Farm Credit and Care360.

He also appreciates the donations made for prizes at the tournament by Boyd’s BBQ, The American, The Meat House and Home Depot.

“People as usual, Decatur County has been very generous,” Burke said. “This turned out better than we could’ve ever imagined.”

Burke was proud of the success in Friday’s event and plans to host it again next year.