LINCOLN – The Professional Logging Contractors (PLC) of Maine held its 23rd Annual Log A Load for Maine Kids Northern Maine Golf Tournament Friday, Sept. 20, raising $52,100 for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals in Maine and pushing its annual fund raising effort to a new record total.
This year for the first time the PLC held two Log A Load golf tournaments, with a new Sept. 6 southern Maine tournament at the Kezar Lake Country Club in Lovell, Maine in addition to the northern Maine tournament at JATO Highlands Golf Course in Lincoln, Maine.
The new tournament has been added as the PLC seeks to expand its annual fund-raising efforts on behalf of Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals in Maine, and has partnered with the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center in Portland in that effort.
The southern tournament raised $25,236, and when added to the money raised at the northern tournament and a record $51,866 raised at the PLC Annual Meeting the effort has now raised more than $129,000 for the year. Last year the PLC raised a total of $122,500 for Log-A-Load, with the bulk of funds coming from the annual golf tournament and PLC Annual Meeting.
“The generosity of the PLC’s members, friends, and supporters is more inspiring each year, and with the new tournament we are expanding participation and the positive impact we can have for Maine families in need,” PLC Executive Director Dana Doran said. “This group always comes through for these families and continues to devote an incredible amount of time, effort, and resources to the Log A Load cause, and our efforts this year are something we should be very proud of.”
The PLC and the Northern Light Health Foundation (formerly Eastern Maine Health Systems Foundation) have partnered in the Log A Load fund-raising effort since 1996. Donations, which have now surpassed $1 million, have gone to support research and training, purchase equipment, and pay for uncompensated care, all in support of the mission to save and improve the lives of as many children in Maine as possible. Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor is a Children’s Miracle Network Hospital and includes a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that has received support for years from the PLC’s Log A Load efforts.
Funds raised from the Lincoln golf tournament will go to Northern Light/Eastern Maine Medical Center and the funds from the Lovell golf tournament will go to the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center. The funds from the PLC Annual Meeting are split between the two hospitals.
The South Carolina Forestry Association started the Log A Load for Kids program in 1988. Originally, the concept was for loggers, wood-supplying businesses, and other industry supporters in various states including Maine to donate the value of a load of logs to their local Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
Nationally, Log A Load for Kids is a leader in CMN Hospitals’ fundraising, raising more than $2 million annually through golf tournaments, fishing events, dinners, truckloads of log donations and other events.
For more information, please visit www.logaload.org.
Maine’s loggers are a vital part of the state’s forest products sector, which is worth an estimated $8.5 billion annually. Logging contributed an estimated $882 million to the state economy in 2014.
Founded in 1995 with a handful of members who were concerned about the future of the industry, the PLC has grown steadily to become a statewide trade association which provides independent logging contractors a voice in the rapidly changing forest products industry. Board membership consists of only loggers, making it an organization that is run by loggers on behalf of loggers. PLC members are responsible for 75 percent of the timber that is harvested from Maine’s forests annually.
Learn more about the PLC at www.maineloggers.com.