BY MATT MACKINDER
Clarkston News Staff Writer

The Clarkston Foundation’s 26th Annual Golf Outing for Education was Aug. 5 at Oakhurst Golf and Country Club and from all accounts, can be deemed another successful event.
“It’s a culmination of hard work from a group of community volunteers whose only goal is to make the Clarkston community and our schools better,” said Dave Coin, a Foundation board member and golf outing chair. “Education is the best gift you can give to the community. It strengthens every aspect. It helps build a great place to raise a family and be part of something great. It’s wonderful to see community members, Clarkston Schools staff and administration, and even former students coming together to support Clarkston Community Schools at our annual event.”
Coin added that the golf outing is where “the community truly steps up.”
“Local volunteers, businesses, teachers, and students all come together for the common cause of supporting the students and staff of Clarkston Community Schools,” Coin said. “Clarkston is such a great place. The Foundation just builds upon the momentum created by the community. We’ve been doing this event for over 25 years and each year, the turnout is larger than the year before. The Foundation board members recognize that our small community can contribute to making a very large impact. We embrace that and are 100 percent committed to putting in the work and creating the relationships within the schools and community that together serve to benefit CCS’s students and staff.”
Being a key component in the school district is also something Coin takes pride in.

“The Foundation is a community-based support organization solely dedicated to supporting the students and staff of Clarkston Community Schools,” Coin said. “Our aim is to help our schools be the best they can be. We have so many amazing teachers who have great ideas to enhance learning. We want to embrace those ideas, and help teachers overcome any obstacles that may hold back that excellence. At the same time, we want to continually provide new and unique opportunities to support our student mathematicians, scientists, writers, musicians and art scholars each year.
“Over the past 30 years, we have accomplished this goal in a variety of ways, including providing classroom grants, summer camp scholarships, dual enrollment scholarships, college scholarships and through our annual Teacher of the Year program. The Foundation continues to grow each year. We welcome new members and volunteers to our cause.”
This year’s golf outing in the books, Coin said plans are already in place for the 2020 event.
“We want to keep the wonderful momentum going,” he said. “Our goal is to connect with more people and students within the community and have them learn all about what the Clarkston Foundation is and does. Our golf outing is a great way to bring people together for a common cause. There is always room for improvement, but the Foundation has a great group of people involved. We had a number of Clarkston High School NHS students this year serving as volunteers, which was wonderful.”
For more information, visit https://www.clarkston.k12.mi.us/community/clarkston-foundation. The Foundation is also on Facebook (@TheClarkstonFoundation) and Twitter (@ClarkstonFound) as well.