UFV Endowments Make a Difference - YouTube

Golf was really the one thing that pushed me to come back and to further my education.

Being able to play it at a university level where you get to travel

and play competitively is just so rewarding.

I'm from a single-parent home so for me the only way I was going to be able to

come back to school full-time and play on the golf team would be to receive

financial aid. I find that that is one of the coolest things is to be able to

face-to-face thank somebody that opened such a big door for me.

One of our core values

as a program is that we strive for excellence in academics, in athletics and

as people, and contributing members of the community. And those are the

standards that we set. And it's fun to watch players and students go

from 18-year-old freshmen to 24, 25 year old graduating students with a much

broader perspective on life, learning all of those important life skills that

they're going to need when they walk out the doors of the university.

The first time I met Rebecca was at the Nick Taylor pro-am.

Emery is just a delight.

She is so much fun and she studies hard, she works hard at her sport, and she

is just an amazing young woman and a great human being

She's going to go very far. And of course Darren. Darren is the one who

first brought me into the fold at UFV.

I really had an incredible experience at UFV

from the professors to the athletic program. I did get financial

assistance. What it did, to be honest, was it allowed me really to narrow down my

focus to my golf game and getting 4.0s in the classroom. Who knows if I would have

gotten into law school. It was really important.

The UFV Nick Taylor Charity

Pro-am for the last three years has been creating endowments for golfers

specifically for a leadership award. Nick and Andy Taylor set up an endowment,

a few others in our community. What we need to really focus on is that golf is

a vehicle we are using but it's not limited for bursaries or scholarships to

the golf program. We're an example that we can create endowments for all the

programs for any student at the university. Ultimately our goal is to

make better people.

You know my interests, and my wife Andie, our interest in

helping the community is trying to stay local. This community has done so much

for us. Andie has worked at the hospital as a social worker. I've grown up here at

Ledgeview, been involved with golf since I can remember really. So, being able to

support people that need help is great. And I think to be able to do that locally

where we can see where it's going, be involved. We still live here it's just

important that we kind of keep it local for us. I feel like we've continued to

improve and try to make it the best experience for everyone who's involved.

That's the goal. I think we've done a great job, so I'm excited to keep

this going. Hopefully this keeps getting bigger and better.

An endowment is something that I'm planning on starting in the name of my father,

Wayne Whitehouse, who unfortunately we lost last year. And it's really an honour

to set up some sort of endowment in his name.

If you're able to be part of a community and contribute in that community, you're going to get everything

back to fulfill your daily happiness. We earn a living to live but we give to

build a life.

It opened the door for me just to be able to get a better education and play a game that I love.

Giving to the University of the Fraser Valley and

giving a sustaining scholarship or just a donation is a win-win: for you, it's a

win for the school, it's a win for the student, it's a win for the future.