Desmond Bishop and other former NFL players highlight the event
If you enjoy playing golf, why not double your fun and golf with an NFL celebrity? In doing so, you can support programs that will benefit the young people of Solano County and will also enjoy a day on the links you will never forget.
The Desmond Bishop Foundation has partnered with My Friend’s House Youth Outreach for the 2021 Celebrity Golf Tournament. Bishop, a former linebacker with the Green Bay Packers who is known best for scooping up a crucial Pittsburgh Steeler fumble in his team’s 31-25 Super Bowl XLV victory, has invited several of his NFL friends to play golf with participants at Yocha Dehe Golf Club in Brooks, Calif., on Thursday, June 17.
The former NFL players include Nick Perry, Nick Barnett, Ryan Grant, Adrian Ross, Levelle Hawkins, Demetrius Crawford, Tim Brown, Lorenzo Alexander, Trestin George and Fred Williamson.
Bishop played football at Fairfield High before going on to star at UC Berkeley, where he was selected to the All-Pac-10 First Team, leading the conference in tackles. He went on to play in the NFL from 2007 until his retirement in 2016. He now serves as defensive coordinator for the Edison High School football team in Stockton.
Bishop and his wife, Geeta, parents of four, are very active in supporting the youth of Solano County.
The proceeds of the tournaments will go to support the Bishop Foundation as well as My Friend’s House, which is managed and supported by Vacaville Solano Services Corporation. VSSC also operates Opportunity House Homeless Shelter and the Opportunity House Thrift Stores in Vacaville and Fairfield.
In this file photo from Feb. 6, 2011, Green Bay Packers’ Desmond Bishop tackles Pittsburgh Steelers’ Heath Miller during the second half of the NFL football Super Bowl XLV game, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
“The Desmond Bishop Foundation and My Friend’s House are both advocates for our local youth, so partnering to raise funds for both charities was a no-brainer,” said VSSC Executive Director Colleen Berumen.
My Friend’s Youth Outreach serves the needs of at-risk youth to support them before they become victims of drugs, street gangs, sex trafficking, or jail.
“We needed to have some homeless youth outreach,” said Berumen. “The Vacaville Unified School District came to me. They had two young ladies, 14 and 15, who were out on the street and they were trying to connect them with services. We were trying to come up with a way that we could help them. That got the juices flowing. That was almost three years ago. So now it’s evolving into opening a homeless youth shelter. We hope to open My Friends’ House in the summer or at the beginning of the fall school year.”
The Bishop Foundation launched a free football camp for youth in 2012, but their vision grew and they realized they could do more good through the Celebrity Golf Tournament, which was first held in 2019 but had to take last year off due to COVID.
“We transitioned to the golf tournament as a way to raise more money for our foundation to have a larger reach,” said Bishop. “Our ideals morphed into wanting to open a youth center. In that way, we can have a central location, and kids can come and get more than just sports. They can have a place where they can have academic help and mentoring help and all the little things that I think sometimes we take for granted. So we just want to be a total support package for the youth in our community.”
If the tournament gets fully booked, the foundation could raise as much as $200,000 to help build the new youth center. Its location is yet to be determined, but it will be somewhere in Solano County.
“The idea behind it is having a basketball court youth center and that way kids can play AAU and play different sports, volleyball, whatever,” said Bishop. “Just have them come and have a free facility to come and work out, train but also have a place to go where after school you can get tutoring, have healthy meals, a kind of refuge.”
Sponsorships for the golf tournament are available at different levels with benefits such as completing your foursome with a celebrity, autographed jerseys, footballs, and more. Registration is open for single players and foursomes. All golfers will receive a GPS/USB cart, breakfast, lunch and nacho bar, refreshments, beer and margaritas on the course, participation in a Q & A session with the football payers at the end of the day, and more.
The foundation also contributes monetarily to the tournament, which gives 100 percent of the proceeds to the youth programs.
“We partner with My Friend’s House and Opportunity House so our reach can be a little bit bigger,” said Bishop. “We have similar ideas in how we can make the community better, so we just partnered up.”
The foundation also does much on an unofficial basis for young people.
“People call us and we give scholarships,” said Bishop. “We help people if they need rent, kids who need uniforms or money to sign up for a specific sporting event or camp. We wanted to do something on a more grand scale and that way I feel like we can centralize the hope.”
Bishop continues to help out at the youth football camp, which is now called Dream Chasers and is run by his friend Crawford. The camp draws in over 200 youngsters.
“HIs camp is my camp and I am usually at those camps supporting those as well,” said Bishop. “And Demetrius will be one of the celebrity golfers. We support each other.”
Bishop has also been a speaker at the annual Police Athletic League (PAL) Hoop Camp at Vacaville High School. The three-day camp is a fun time for learning and basketball competition for girls and boys ages 7-13.
“Anybody who is doing anything positive, I am always game to support,” said Bishop.
In addition to his work for his foundation, Bishop is kept plenty busy on the homefront.
“I have four kids so focusing on them takes a lot of my time,” he said. “My son plays AAU basketball so traveling with him and coaching him has been really great. He is six and plays on the 9-and-under team, so he does good.”
Bishop is in the real estate business and is also considering opening a small business in San Francisco’s Hunters Point neighborhood, where he grew up, to give back to that community.
To sponsor, register, donate, or for more information about the Celebrity Golf Tournament, visit www.desmondbishop55.com/the-2021-celebrity-golf-tournament/ or email, Colleen Berumen, at cberumen@vsscorp.org or call Colleen at 707-447-1988.
To learn more about the Desmond Bishop Foundation visit www.desmondbishoplb.com. To learn more about My Friend’s House Youth Programs, visit www.mfhsolano.org.
Via: thereporter.com
