Headline: Juniper Hill Golf Course Combines Golf With Giving Back and Gives Thanks During This 2016 Holiday Season

For Immediate Release: November 21, 2016

Juniper Hill GC celebrates its 18th Annual Turkey Day

Northborough, MA — When one thinks about turkey, the likeliest of connections is to football, family and food – the traditional trifecta celebrated on the last Thursday of November each year in households across America.

When one adds the term golf into the turkey conversation, enthusiasts instantly make the connection to the coined term for when a player records three birdies in a row, a remarkable feat for even the top amateur golfers.

But at one local golf club in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, turkeys aren’t only a mark on the scorecard, rather a way to bring people together as a way to help others in their own community. And the results are just as remarkable.

In the week prior to Thanksgiving, Northborough’s Juniper Hill Golf Course hosted its 18th Annual Turkey Day, an event that allows individuals to enjoy a free round of golf if they donate a frozen turkey, which are collected by the staff members and donated to organizations such as Veterans, Inc., Northborough Food Pantry and Worcester County Food Bank, three organizations who help provide meals for those in need throughout the Greater Worcester area.

The club hosted two 144-person shotgun style tournaments on Friday, November 18 and the event filled up so quickly that the club extended their offer to include Thursday, November 17 as well.  

"It means a lot," said Juniper Hill Golf Course General Manager Dudley Darling during the small break between the morning and afternoon rounds on Friday. “Most of our golfers are local, and we feel it’s helping to give back to where our base is.

For Darling, the concept for the Turkey Day drive was one that he learned of 20 years ago when attending the National Golf Course Owners Association National Conference, and one that has become a fan favorite for regulars at the central Massachusetts course ever since.

"A girl from a course in the Midwest was giving a presentation about the idea at the NGCOA conference. It was around Thanksgiving and she had opened her course up to golfers and gave them free golf if they brought a local turkey to give to the local food bank," recalled Darling. "It sounded like a crazy thing to do, but a couple years later, I had heard that the Worcester County Food Bank had lost a major supplier for their Thanksgiving. So I said I’d give it a try and it has just blossomed since then."

Since it began at Juniper Hill in 1999, the Turkey Day event has continuously drawn interest at a time when many New England golf courses would otherwise be closing down for the season.   

"Our golfers starting asking what the date of the Turkey Day is in September, so they get all geared up for it and basically we give them a round of golf for a frozen turkey," explained Darling. "It’s like a win-win-win." 

Due to the popularity of the event, this is the fifth year where Juniper Hill GC has offered the event over a span of two days.

As to where the frozen turkeys go after the round of golf, staff members at the club work with the staff at the Worcester Country Food Bank, who send over a large truck to which the donated items are collected.

Once gathered, most of the turkeys go to Veterans Incorporated, a 501(c)3 nonprofit headquartered in Massachusetts whose primary focus is on helping veterans and their families in need. Since 1990, the organization has helped more than 60,000 veterans in need and today operates offices and programs in all six New England states.

According to Darling, Veterans, Inc. hosts a farmer’s market the Tuesday before Thanksgiving where veterans can come in and receive a turkey and all the sidings to make a Turkey Day feast complete.

Other turkeys get served at the shelter on Thanksgiving and in the days leading up to it.

In addition to the collection of frozen turkeys, Juniper Hill also provided additional ways for golfers to help the people in their community. Staff members offered complimentary breakfast to the golfers prior to their rounds, and complimentary post-round appetizers, for which the club simply asked for a donation.

When all the counting was said and done, Juniper Hill collected 217 turkeys for the Worcester County Food Bank and Veterans, Inc., while an additional 90 were donated to the Northborough Food Pantry to feed needy families in Central Massachusetts.

Besides the main meals, a total of $1,753 was collected in monetary donations for use by both the Worcester County Food Bank and the Northborough Food Pantry, another way that Darling says helps combat the overall problem of hunger in the local community.

“They can buy a lot of food because of their connections with the food industry than we can. Even though we are providing a lot of turkeys, with those donations, we are providing a lot of other things for them as well.”

While 2016 marked the 18th year that Juniper Hill GC participated in this fundraiser, they are not the only club in the region to offer this type of event to help give back to the community.

At Salem New Hampshire’s Campbell's Scottish Highlands Golf Course earlier this month, the club collected 104 turkeys and $915 in gift certificates/cash for The Food Pantry at Pleasant Street Methodist Church in what was also their 18th annual Turkey Day event.  

Darling hopes that other clubs will consider participating in events like this as well in the coming years.