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Browns hold 20th annual Foundation Golf Tournament to benefit education, youth football initiatives

The Cleveland Browns held their 20th annual Foundation Golf Tournament in Rocky River to benefit education and youth football initiatives.

ROCKY RIVER, Ohio — The Cleveland Browns held their 20th annual Cleveland Browns Foundation Golf Tournament at the Westwood Country Club in the Cleveland suburb of Rocky River Monday.

The Cleveland Browns Foundation Golf Tournament is the largest annual fundraising event for the organization’s community programs, which have focused on youth football and education under the direction of owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam.

“Dee and I really believe that education is the single most important cause that you can be involved in,” Jimmy Haslam said prior to the start of the outing. “All kinds of studies have showed that extracurricular activities, whether it being in the band, being in a play or participating in any kind of sports will help keep young people involved in school, it will help school attendance.

“We strongly believe education is the key to the future. Study after study has showed that children that get involved in school, attend school have a better chance of succeeding in school. If they’ll stay in school and graduate from high school, the chances of them having ‘a successful life’ are much, much higher than those who drop out of school early. That’s why we’ve had a tremendous focus on education, on extra-curricular activities, specifically youth football.”

Credit: Matt Florjancic
Former Cleveland Browns linebacker Frank Stams hits a tee shot at the 2019 Cleveland Browns Foundation Golf Tournament at Westwood Country Club in Rocky River Monday.

For several years, the Browns have partnered with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District to curb an alarming trend of drops in attendance, known as chronic absenteeism.

“If you miss 10 or more days, you’re probably not going to graduate from high school, and that’s pretty astounding,” Dee Haslam said. “We decided to involve our players in messaging to the community. A message from a player to someone’s home does make a difference.

“One of the barriers that you wouldn’t believe is that if a kid doesn’t have a clean uniform, the parents won’t send the kid to school, so we’ve partnered with Shoes and Clothes for Kids, and we’ve made a difference in 8,000 kids by providing them with these packages of uniforms. It really makes a difference. We’ve been able to decrease chronic absenteeism in the CMSD school system by five percent, which can mean five percent more kids have a chance to graduate.”

Credit: Matt Florjancic
The Cleveland Browns held their 20th annual Foundation Golf Tournament at Westwood Country Club in Rocky River to benefit education and youth football initiatives.

With support from their corporate sponsors and events like the Foundation Golf Tournament, the Browns are looking to take their programs statewide through a partnership with the Ohio Department of Education.

“This is remarkable what they do to keep kids in school,” Browns coach Freddie Kitchens said prior to the start of the outing. “I find it fascinating. A lot of people talk about graduating kids, kids graduating high school that have more chance of success than they do of dropping out of high school.

“Nobody wants to talk about dropout rate. Well, giving kids the ability to show up for school increases the chances, so kind of stopping the problem before it gets started or correcting the initial problem is what’s key that they have been able to identify and take advantage of.”

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