Employers Health Foundation Golf Outing

10:30 AM Registration
11:30 AM Shotgun Start
4:30 PM Awards Dinner

Funds raised will annually benefit a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the Greater Stark County area. Funds from this year’s outing will benefit Canton For All People.

Canton For All People works to create affordable housing opportunities, improve public safety and health, promote educational opportunities and break cycles of poverty in Canton’s core neighborhoods.

The purpose of the project is to renovate the former Canton Calvary Mission on Gibbs Avenue to offer high-quality preschool education, daycare, after school programming, recreational opportunities, hot meals and positive community engagement opportunities to support families in the Shorb/Gibbs neighborhood. The goal of the Gibbs Avenue Center is to focus on early interventions with the community’s youngest residents and provide the hundreds of families in these areas with a childcare opportunity in proximity to the supporting public school.

Gibbs Elementary School is a kindergarten through third grade public school with an enrollment of 392 children. Nearly all of them are families living at or below the federal poverty guideline. The neighborhood school services Canton’s near northwest and northeast neighborhoods. In this area, there are 1,078 households with children, 69% of which are single parent households. Among these households there are a total of 565 children between the ages of 0-5. The current public school pre-k program remains at capacity with a waitlist. For the Shorb and Gibbs neighborhoods specifically, nearly 70% of working households carpool, walk or utilize public transportation to work. Combined with the economic stress of rising housing costs and a median income in these areas below $30,000 annually, access to quality childcare remains a significant challenge in the most distressed neighborhoods in the city.

The proposed site at 1345 Gibbs Ave. NE Canton was formerly the site of the Canton Calvery Mission. The mission provided kids programming, hot meals, clothing and groceries to the neighborhood since 2001 and closed in February 2022. Canton for All People has conducted multiple assessments of the former Canton Calvary Mission over the past 12 months, including reviews from architects, engineers and developers. Courses of action including full and partial demolition and new construction were evaluated, but given the good structural integrity of the building and the rising cost of new construction, it was determined that a renovation of the facility was the best course of action. Major improvements to the building, including accessibility upgrades, heating and cooling, windows and roof have been determined to be feasible within standard construction timelines.