Miniature Golf Raises $3,000 for Program

The course may have been miniature, but the fun at the first ARC Industries Miniature Golf Tournament Saturday morning at Golf N’ Stuff in Ventura was larger than life.

For more than two hours, clients and supporters of the Camarillo-based nonprofit organization, which provides independent living and job skills for developmentally disabled adults, chased that elusive hole in one. Two people found it.

The tourney, intended to become an annual event, raised about $3,000, said Georgia Dennehey, ARC outreach director. Just as important, the golf tournament brought 70 ARC clients together with community members, she said.

“This event was designed to include the entire community. We wanted it to be a recreational outing and an event that our clients might not have done before,” Dennehey said.

Among those clients who played through the 18 holes was 27-year-old Christie of Oxnard. She has lived with dyslexia and attention-deficit disorder all her life. Because of her disabilities, Christie said, she endured years of ridicule. But that changed in December 1994, when she was accepted into the ARC Training for Independent Living program.

“Before I came here I was living with my parents. It was tough to get a job because of my learning disabilities,” said Christie, who requested that her last name not be used. “When I got into the independent living program it was easier to get a job because ARC has a job developer who takes you out to look for a job.”

The job developer helped Christie find a job in an Oxnard bakery, and she is doing fine on her own. “ARC helped me find a job and a place to live,” she said.

No longer do people make fun of her. “They’re learning that disabled people are normal people and that we can do the same things as them,” Christie said.

Although she did not make a hole in one during Saturday’s tournament, Christie received an award for the best costume. “I was a flapper,” she said.

“We all really had fun,” she said.