Golf Tournament

Golf event features 18-holes at Race Brook CC & more

2010 tourney will be held on June 7 

MILFORD (May 2010) – Boys & Girls Village will host the 35th Annual Dan & Yolanda Memorial Golf Tournament on June 7, 2010, at Race Brook Country Club, Orange, CT.

The tournament is sponsored by BIC Corp., and features a noon lunch, 18 holes of golf in the afternoon, and dinner with raw bar, open bar, special raffle, event prizes and more.

Proceeds are used to benefit at-risk boys and girls served by the not-for-profit social service agency, which is based in Milford, CT, and has community offices in Bridgeport and Waterbury. In Milford, Boys & Girls Village operates a special education day school for children ages 6-15, two residential homes – the Kids I.N.N. sub-acute residential shelter and the state-sponsored Safe Haven “safe home” children’s shelter, the Greater New Haven Extended Day program, and Outpatient Clinic. In Bridgeport and Waterbury, the agency operates the Clinic, after-school, foster and adoptive care, in-home and other community services for at-risk children and families.

The tournament is held in honor of the late Dan & Yolanda Adley, co-founders of the agency that dates back to 1942. For more information, please call Development Director Chris Carroll at (203) 876-3858, or by email at: carrollc@bgvillage.org. 

Golf tourneys have a long history of success; namesakes instrumental in agency history

Race Brook County Club in Orange has hosted the Annual Dan & Yolanda Adley Memorial Golf Tournament for many years and will likely do so for many years to come, according to co-chairs Dave Belowsky, Kevin Hart and Joseph Cretella III. When Dan & Yolanda Adley organized the first annual golf tournament in 1976 benefiting then-named Boys Village, little did they know that it would be their first, and sadly, their last golf tournament together. Only weeks later, on June 15, 1976, Dan Adley died - ironically on the couple's 45th wedding anniversary.

It was a sad ending to a magnificent, accomplished life.  Dan Adley was instrumental in many ways during the early years of Boys Village, taking over after founder J. Edward Slavin, New Haven's long-time High Sheriff, first proposed and began a facility for wayward boys during the early years of World War II. 

The original Boys Village was founded in 1942 on a farm and home on Wheelers Farms Road in Milford, CT. Throughout the remaining 1940s and until his death in 1976, Dan Adley used his skills and business connections to help the fledging agency establish a financial footing. 

Dan Adley, instrumental in so many ways, was not alone. Yolanda Adley, Dan's energetic and dedicated spouse, served as the inspiration and the spirit behind numerous highly successful fundraising efforts throughout the ’50s, ’60s and 1970s until her passing in 1997 at age 88. 

Early on, the Adleys inspired the formation of the New Haven Committee for Boys Village. In its earliest days, card parties and dinner dances were held at the Adley's home in New Haven, once during a hurricane!

Events were later held at San Remo's, with ever-larger dinner-dances moved to the 7 Gables Townhouse on Crown Street, then the larger Goff Street Armory, complete with fancy-dressed couples shuttled by bus and escorted into the Ball via fancy footguard.  Seeking a different way to raise money, in 1976 the first Boys Village Golf Tournament was held in Wallingford, replacing the dinner-dance. The tournament was moved to Race Brook Country Club in 1980, where it has been held since.  Although they are gone, Dan and Yolanda's legacy continues to this day.

Many members of the extended Adley family, as well their social and business network of friends and associates, still volunteer and remain major donors. Joy Adley Carloni, the couples' daughter, and husband Ralph Carloni, remain instrumental. Gina Hart, daughter of Ralph and Joy, recently joined her Dad on the Board of Directors and helps organize the golf volunteers. Meanwhile, Kevin Hart, Gina’s husband, is a co-chair of the Golf Committee and chairman of the Village Foundation, a sister organization. The Hart's two children, Connor and Courtney Hart, also are active volunteers at fundraisers benefiting the Village.

And to this day, other members of the original New Haven Committee continue to raise funds and volunteer. All told, they have helped to make the Dan & Yolanda Golf Tournament among the most successful fundraisers in the region, raising nearly $1.8 million since 1976.

For more information on Boys & Girls Village, call Development Director Chris Carroll toll free at (888) 922-5528, ext. 131, or email Chris at carrollc@boysvill.org.