What better way to try and raise money to save one golf course by congregating at the remnants of another?
Members of the newly formed Oak Ridge Golf Course Association will be holding a fundraiser today at 2 p.m. at the newly opened Green Acres Bar & Grille on Deerfield Street in Greenfield. Green Acres is the former Meadows Golf Course, which is now so overgrown anyone new to town would be hard-pressed to identify it as a former golf course.
The same could happen to Oak Ridge in Gill after former owners Richard and Janice Giverson filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 28. Since the filing, a group of eight to 10 individuals have started up a non-profit association and have put up $25,000 apiece to try and purchase the course and Gillbilly’s Pub and Restaurant. The belief is that the group needs to nearly double the $250,000 it currently has raised, which will allow the group to not only purchase the course and restaurant, but to run it.
The fundraiser will include cornhole games and a putting contest, as well as classic cars and music by Shawn Garland and Friends. It will serve as an informational gathering in which members of the association will be able to answer questions about what they are looking to do.
The Oak Ridge Association has already set up a GoFundMe page called “Save Oak Ridge Golf Course,” but they are also looking for more investors, and they have come up with several options according to member Gene Lacoy. Anyone interested buying in for $25,000 will receive a one-year membership as well as association voting rights, rights to be on committees and a 3-percent dividend if the business turns a profit and if allowed by legal structure of non-profit corporations in the state.
Other options include a $5,000 option in which members get all the same perks except rather than a year-long membership, the investor would get one free day of golf per week (Friday). The final option is a $1,000 investment in which the person would be one of five in a group that gets the $5,000 perks, and has to share the use of the Friday golf benefit.
Besides raising enough money to buy the course and getting it up and running, the other issue facing the Oak Ridge Association is doing all of this in a timely fashion. The association will hire professionals to operate the course, but they need to get onto the course before it gets overgrown, according to Lacoy.
The association has a Facebook page called the “Oak Ridge Golf Cooperative” where people can find out more information.