Bags and Badges Cornhole Tournament to benefit children

The Santa Cops for Kids program will host a Bags and Badges Cornhole Tournament fundraiser to aid local children.

The tournament will be Saturday, March 26 at The Hangar in Maryville. Check-in is from 11 to 11:45 am and the tournament will begin at noon.

Registration is $50 per team or $25 per person. Winning prizes include: 1st place, $500; 2nd place, $300; 3rd place, $100; and 4th place, movie passes.

Ian Myers, Maryville Public Safety officer, said the idea for the fundraiser came while attending a cornhole tournament at The Hangar last November.

“We ended up tossing the Santa Cops name out as a potential beneficiary of a future tournament and were almost immediately selected,” Myers said. “Since then, we’ve worked closely with Tad Gordon, owner of The Hangar, Holly Cronk, Make it Maryville, and Krista Shelton, Focused Forensic Solutions, to make this tournament a reality. They’ve been absolutely tremendous to us, and we couldn’t be more excited to see how this little shindig turns out.”

What began as a holiday-based charity in 2013 with members from the Nodaway County Sheriff’s Office, the Maryville Public Safety, the Missouri Department of Corrections, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Northwest Missouri State University Police Department, the Santa Cops for Kids program has grown in the number of services offered throughout the entire year.

“Although we still do our part to brighten the holiday season, we’ve started assisting local children outside of the winter months, working closely with our area school districts to identify the needs of their specific communities,” Myers said.

Those include the formation of a school food pantry, outfitting students with seasonally appropriate clothing, providing at-home internet access to students and working with classroom teachers to identify and rectify student needs.

“While we have expanded our outreach over the past several years, the ultimate goal has remained the same – help those that need it,” he said. “Our hope is that the public gets a glimpse that we, as law enforcement officers, are completely invested in this community. We live here, we raise our kids here and we care about our neighbors.”

The organization also hosts an annual golf tournament at Mozingo Lake Golf Course and have received donations from multiple civic groups around the county.

For more information on the Bags and Badges Cornhole Tournament or to sign up, visit tinyurl.com/BagsandBadges.