Reflecting on Pomerleau’s first-ever charity golf tournament: Collaboration for a cause

On October 3, we did an amazing thing in Pomerleau 's Atlantic office—we held our company’s first-ever charity golf tournament, raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada (LLSC).

I’m a Hodgkin’s Lymphoma survivor, with five cancer-free years under my belt, so this charity is pretty important to me. I want to share four important lessons from this experience—all about collaboration and making it work, whatever it is you choose to stand behind.

Lesson 1: Pick something you all care about. We started organizing the tournament back in June. What was interesting to me was how many people were passionate about helping, and were ready to take time out of their usual busy workdays to support the organization of this event. Everyone cared deeply—and I think that’s because we are all in some way touched by cancer. People showed up and gave their all.

Lesson 2: Do the important things first. We held most of our organization meetings first thing in the morning. Everyone on the team showed up bright-eyed, ready to put their first bit of energy into this cause, this project. It was an important ingredient in our recipe!

Lesson 3: Focus on the cause. We approached competitors, trade partners and clients for support. We sold them sponsorships, watched them donate generously to our silent auction and saw them really “show up” for this. We checked our work personas at the door, put any competitive feelings aside and focused on the cause.

Lesson 4: Have fun. On October 3 at Granite Springs Golf Club, 150 golfers from the construction industry took to the fairways and truly enjoyed a fabulous early fall day on the course. We were all happy to be here, knowing the money we were raising would help someone. Maybe even someone we love.

I’m proud to report that our efforts led to almost $65,000 being donated to the LLSC. It is truly amazing what you can do when people genuinely care. I think that if we put these lessons into practice, we will win every time. This time, we won for blood cancers.