Yona Adika, an occupational therapist at the Academy of Software Engineering on the Washington Irving Campus in Manhattan, chips toward the green, while his teammates — (from left) Tom Nixon, Greg Monte and Brooklyn HS Representative Charles DiBenedetto — look on.
The UFT’s Invitational Golf Outing on Oct. 9 raised close to $110,000 for the UFT Disaster Relief Fund and victims of the August wildfires in Hawaii. The event brought 135 golfers to the Douglaston Golf Course in Queens, and another 45 people joined for the luncheon. It featured golfing challenges, including a longest drive contest, door prizes, a basket auction and a raffle. Jessica Dimech, a Queens Technical HS math teacher on sabbatical, invited her father, her brother and her sister to golf with her as a team. While on sabbatical, she said, “I’m taking every opportunity I can to spend time with my family.” Casual golfer Thomas Nixon, who teaches at the HS for Service and Learning at Erasmus in Brooklyn, teamed with three fellow educators. Nixon said he strongly believes in the social causes the union supports. “I could play golf probably any weekend,” he said. “But the fact that the money we raised helps other people, that’s really the most important part.”