Vera and Joseph Dresner Foundation ensures “Family Matters” for Class of 2023 Midnight Golf Program Students
Funding will provide 600 weekly meals to college-bound seniors
The Midnight Golf Program (MGP) is pleased to announce it has received a $134,800 grant from the Vera and Joseph Dresner Foundation. This gift will support the MGP Family Matters initiative, covering the cost of 600 meals each week for college-bound high school seniors for the 2022-2023 program year.
Each year, two cohorts of Midnight Golf students gather for 3-hour sessions twice a week for 30 weeks. During each session, students experience life skills, mentoring, golf, and family dinner – the latter being critically important as research shows youth are far more likely to do better in school, maintain or improve good emotional health, and avoid destructive behaviors when they have family dinner.
“Family dinner has been at the core of Midnight Golf since the beginning,” said Reneé Fluker, Founder & President of the Midnight Golf Program. “Our mentors first serve the students then everyone sits down to enjoy dinner together. Having these family-style dinners offers opportunities for open and honest conversation between adults and young people which nurtures positive self-esteem and a sense of belonging for all. This funding from the Dresner Foundation will help strengthen the relationships between our mentors, coaches, and students to better support them on their journeys to and through college, setting them up for success in college, their careers, and beyond.”
MGP mentors young adults on the journey from high school to and through college and on to a professional career. For 21 years, Midnight Golf has positively impacted outcomes for youth throughout the metro Detroit region. Since 2001, over 4,000 young adults have experienced the transformational program that includes life skills instruction, mentoring, nightly family-style dinners, college advising, a weeklong college and cultural tour and PGA professional golf instruction.
“Midnight Golf continues to consistently deliver thoughtful programming for Detroit-area students at a crucial period of transition in their lives,” said Virginia Romano, the Dresner Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer. “Offering healthy meals, Midnight Golf ensures that students are able to perform at the top of their game in golf and life.
About the Vera and Joseph Dresner Foundation
The Vera and Joseph Dresner Foundation is dedicated to transforming lives in profoundly positive ways through grants focused on health, youth and family, and animal welfare. The Foundation believes in working with organizations in its focus areas to create opportunity, have community impact, and promote wellbeing. For more information, visit www.dresnerfoundation.org.
About the Midnight Golf Program
The Midnight Golf Program was founded in 2001 by Reneé Fluker, a social worker and single mother who noticed the impact golf had on her son’s life. Today the program annually serves 1,500 college students and early career professionals as well as 250 new high school seniors who participate in a 30-week curriculum to learn the game of golf, build relationships with mentors and develop life skills. Midnight Golf helps seniors enter college and continues mentoring throughout college and into the graduates’ professional careers. For more information, visit www.midnightgolf.org.
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