By DONALD MOTTERN | Staff Writer

HOOVER – The Megan Montgomery Foundation is presenting a charitable golf outing on Wednesday, Sept. 20 at the Greystone Legacy Golf and Country Club.

The golf outing, with Medical Properties Trust as the presenting sponsor and Blue Cross Caring Foundation and BTC Wholesale/D’Amico Family as co-sponsors, is dedicated to Megan’s memory and is intent on furthering the mission of preventing domestic violence before it starts.

The outing will seek to raise money and bring much-needed awareness to the issue of domestic violence and hopes to do so in a way that is both enjoyable and lasting in its impact.

Begun by her mother and stepfather, The Megan Montgomery Foundation was formed in April 2021 following the tragic murder of their daughter, Megan, by her estranged husband on Dec. 1, 2019.

Weeks prior to her death, Megan announced that it was her new mission in life to save women, to help other girls and young women learn about the red flags of domestic violence and to do what she could to help them get out of their situations. It is a mission that her parents wholeheartedly continue and work tirelessly to further.

“We raise funds so that we can distribute (them) to schools and nonprofits so they can provide healthy relationship education for their students.” said Megan’s Mother Susann Montgomery-Clark, who also serves as the co-founder and board president of MMF. “(And) so that their students learn about dating and domestic violence. They learn how they can help each other prevent it and how they can look out for each other.”

As of the beginning of August, MMF had raised $104,000 in grant money that has been used to reach more than 2,100 students and 1,400 adults.

While not strictly limited to providing routes for education on the topic only to students, it is a primary focus of the foundation.

“What people don’t understand is that domestic violence starts early.” Montgomery-Clark said. “There’s early predictors of someone that’s going to be an offender later in life. And those predictors can start as early as middle school with controlling behavior. And not everybody who has controlling behavior will become an abuser, everybody knows that, but those who are can be avoided early on by victims because they can know what the early warning signs are.”

MMF accomplishes this in part through proactive outreach to schools. This results in the provision of grants that allow educators to afford the implementation of programs and to implement programs of their choosing.

Allowing the schools to select programs that best fit their students, curriculum and culture is an adaptive approach that MMF feels is the best way to bring such topics into the atmosphere of conversation. MMF merely requires that educators select evidence-based and age-appropriate programs for the audiences being addressed. If they meet that requirement, MMF provides the funding.

“We’re the only charitable fund in the state of Alabama that’s doing this.” Montgomery-Clark said.

For the golf tournament, which will raise funds toward these efforts, both Susann and Rod Clark, Megan’s stepfather, were inspired by Rod and Megan’s mutual enjoyment for the game. The two of them used the sport as an activity to enjoy time together, starting in Megan’s childhood, on through her teenage years, into adulthood and carrying on until the end of her life.

“It was just really one of my great memories of being with Megan, even when she was seven, eight, (or) nine years old and then when she was in her teens and early 20s,” Clark said. “We would get out and it would just be a great one-on-one time with her.”

The Megan Montgomery Foundation Charity Golf Outing still has room for more participants, with foursome positions still available. Those interested are encouraged to reach out to Rod Clark at rodclark@megansfoundation.org or by phone at 205-531-0946.

“We’ve got a lot of interest in it,” Clark said. “It’s early in the fall, so the temperature ought to be good. Greystone Legacy (Golf and Country Club), where we’re having it, has redone all of their greens. These are all new putting-greens (they’ve) just recently completed. We hope people will join. We’re making good progress.”