Cara Collective was founded in 1991 by an entrepreneur and philanthropist named Tom Owens. Tom traveled around extensively contributing to global projects aimed at helping people living in poverty. Upon returning home, Tom realized there was work to be done in his own backyard and soon dedicated himself to reducing poverty in Chicago by connecting quality jobs with the people who needed them. In its early days, Cara’s office was Tom’s car as he traveled from shelter to shelter preparing and coaching people for interviews and referring them to open positions in firms where he had business connections.

There is an incredible and untapped talent pool in Chicago – one comprised of people often experiencing homelessness and poverty. Cara works to unlock the strengths they already have and showcase them anew to the world. We, your Reach community, have engaged with Cara over the years by volunteering at events, sorting professional clothing, going to their Motivations, among other opportunities. Year over year, Cara has provided the means and community for participants to find employment and keep their new roles for over one year, with percentages well above the national average. We, your Reach community, are big, big fans.

This year, we committed to organizing our 1st Annual Golf Outing as a fundraiser for Cara. We rallied 100 golfers for one heck of a day of golf. It was a blast of a day: great weather, fun games, and awesome vibes as we played golf and did our part in fundraising efforts for Cara.

We raised $8,046 at the outing, and had a blast doing it. Whether we bring friends to play and learn about Cara, give what we can as donation, or play our hearts out on the course, this group of 100 golfers contributed our time + treasure + talent to do what we could to make an impact.

Cara as a nonprofit organization continues to deliver on statistics and results for their participants in need of their services year over year. We, your Reach community, continue to be impressed and compelled to support the mission, and are excited to have pulled off this golf event this year to help expand our impact. Let’s be clear, golf is a fun way to get out and have some fun together. That being said, our donation surpassing $8,000 from a fun outing with friends makes an impact certainly much more significant than any of us are willing / able to make on our own.

Keep a lookout! After the success of our first golf outing here, we will 100% be organizing this again next Summer. Meanwhile, join us for volunteer opportunities with Cara to help them continue to grow and carry out their mission in landing more and more participants in need with full time, long term employment around our Chicago neighborhoods. Cara is up to BIG things, and we strongly suggest you join us in being a part of it. This golf event, although an easy ask for you golfers out there, was a cool thing we all just pulled off to help support Cara. It doesn’t always take much: we had the knowledge of the mission we wanted to support, we all showed up to do our part and participate, and we saw very quickly as our impact expanded into raising $8,046 for our nonprofit partner. WE DID THAT. That was cool. On to today 🙂

Your dear friend,

Charlie Hoover