In 2016, John Malcolm O’Handley passed away.
A group of his friends, decided to buy a memorial bench at the golf course for him. “He loved golf,” explains Xoch Smith, a friend and president of the board of the Johnny Malcolm foundation.
But a bench wasn’t enough, so they decided to turn the bench into a tournament. “It turned into a fundraising golf tournament just because people wanted to donate,” she says. “We didn’t organize it that way, people were just showing up with money and prizes.”
In that first year—2018—they raised $13,000. Because they hadn’t been planning on making the tournament a fundraiser, they weren’t sure what to do with it. So they decided to divide the money up amongst a number of needy families in the community. But that didn’t feel quite right for a tournament in honour of Johnny. “Tumbler Ridge is really good at like taking care of people that are going through hard times. There’s benefit dinners and things like that all the time. You’ve got groups like the Lions and the Legion. There’s all those other organizations. At the same time, things just kept snowballing. Every time we had an event, people would ask what the plan was for next year? What’s the next step? We decided we wanted to do something that was a little bit more personal to John. He was a very good athlete and he played a lot of softball, golf and hockey.”
So, building off his love for sport, the group of friends decided to form a non-profit and raise money for kids’ sports in Tumbler Ridge. “The whole board grew up here, so we all know what it is like to play sports here, How much it costs to travel and the commitment needed from parents and coaches. Living in a rural, isolated community can be expensive for athletes, and so we thought this was an avenue we could take.
That was 2019. Just as the foundation was making its big debut, Covid hit. The memorial golf tournament continued, with John’s family coming to town from all across BC. “And then last year was our first year taking over the Movember Classic Hockey Tournament. The Rec League here in Tumbler has been having this tournament since 2013. They were raising money for the actual Movember movement. When we took it over, it turned out to be a huge success.”
How big a success? According to Smith, the foundation has given out $18,000 to individuals and sports teams in town, recently helping the senior girls Volleyball team to travel to Prince George for a tournament.
What’s next for the foundation? “We’re toying around with the idea of doing a softball tournament, just to hit the three sports that John really liked.
“We really wanted to give the kids here an opportunity to be able to build self-confidence and improve mental health, and sport is a key part of that.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
