100 golfers.
One reason.
$35,267 delivered.
The first Resilient Open was a bet: that a golf course, a dinner, and a story about a father worth fighting for could move real money toward blood cancer research. It worked. Year one delivered $35,267 directly to Blood Cancer United research — and the experience of running it became the founding moment for the JRA Foundation. Year two is our first year raising as the foundation.
The day, in pieces
A few things that mattered more than we planned for.
At 1 : 00 the course went quiet, then loud.
Twenty-five foursomes on eighteen tees. A beat of silence. Then a hundred drivers swung at the same time. The sound rolled across the fairways and into the clubhouse, and for the first time in months the weight of what we were building turned into a thing you could actually hear.
58° and holding
Cool morning, crisp afternoon, perfect light by 4pm. Nobody left early.
“My husband was in treatment for six months. Gas alone almost broke us. What you’re doing is the thing people don’t know they need until they need it.”
Every item cleared.
Forty-two items on the silent auction board. Every single one got a bid. The last item closed eleven minutes after the announced cutoff because two bidders refused to put their phones down.
The room understood why.
We didn’t hide the reason. Halfway through dinner, with everyone holding a glass, we told the story — John, the diagnosis, the fights that never made it to the golf course. The room was silent for longer than we expected. Then someone from table four stood up and doubled their donation. Then table seven. Then the whole back half of the room. Year one closed with $35,267 delivered to Blood Cancer United research because that’s the moment people decided it wasn’t a golf outing anymore.
Photos are on the way
Our photographer’s final gallery is still processing. Until it lands, here’s a note about what we chose to capture — and what we didn’t.
We asked our photographer to keep the camera off the families. This event is for them, not about them. What you’ll see when the gallery lands is the game, the grounds, and the people who showed up — not the reason they needed to.
Names on the board
We’re doubling it.
Year one proved the reason. Year two is the number. Bigger field, bigger auction, bigger check to families who need the drive to treatment to not be the thing that stops them.