Special Kids Golf Tournament at Valleybrook Golf and Country Club
CHATTANOOGA, TN.- Valleybrook golf and country club hosted a golf tournament for the nonprofit pediatric therapy center special kids. The tournament will raise awareness and support for children with special healthcare needs while bringing together community members.
“This is our event for the special kids here in Chattanooga, Tennessee although we serve Cleveland North Georgia a lot of our children do come from Georgia. We’re just located in Chattanooga, so special kids have been open in Rutherford County for 28 years so we’re not due to doing this. We’re just new to Chattanooga serving all the children here in this community. There’s over 15,000 children just in Hamilton County alone that have special healthcare needs” says Carrie Goodwin, founder of Special Kids.
At Valleybrook, participants in the tournament got to hear from Carrie Goodwin, first-hand how Special Kids got started, and how the organization is growing and helping more kids everyday.
“The community has come out and supported special kids so much. We have 27 teams, 108 golfers and that’s for a first event so this is pretty huge. Just this community has wrapped their arms around special kids and just supported what we’re doing just serving children who before were on long waiting list up to two years.” says Carrie Goodwin, founder of Special Kids.
The organization provides occupational, physical, speech, and feeding therapy in an accessible, family-centered environment. Families like Kaitlyn Hughes and Dave Wallace who use Special Kids express the tremendous progress that a child can make .
“When Nora was born, we knew there was quickly understood that there was disabilities there were some issues and when she was diagnosed and we were told that she was possibly never gonna walk or talk and we quickly understood the need for treatment, and the ness for therapy and the lack of it to see her now walking unassisted and talking in small but complete sentences and then be able to hear her say that you know she just turned five this week and we’re just so so thankful.” says Dave Wallace, grandfather of Nora Hughes.
Special Kids’ goal is to take children off the waiting list and get them access to the specialized healthcare they deserve.
