SYLVANIA, Ohio — It's a big week for our area as the Dana Open gets set to tee off.
Thousands of people will come to Sylvania to watch some of the best women's golfers in the world, and with them come tens of thousands of dollars.
On top of fans who make their way to Highland Meadows for the tournament, a large portion of the money spent during the event goes right to charities in our area.
The fundraising for this is already underway. TutorSmart is one of 19 organizations chosen to benefit from the revenue this year's Dana Open brings in.
"We are on a mission to support our schools, teachers and families with intentional tutoring after school," TutorSmart Toledo's Executive Director Tiffany Adamski said.
TutorSmart Toledo has been in the community for about five years, offering free tutoring to students across the city.
"What we really try to do is bring the tutoring into the community where it's lower stakes; we're not calling you out in front of your friends," Adamski explained. "We do it in very small groups or we do it online even. For our kids who are really far behind, we have online tutoring that's one-to-one."
On any given day, TutorSmart Toledo is helping around 350 kids.
As one of the chosen charities, their goal is to use the money they get to expand into other parts of town.
Another charity, Food for Thought, is helping the community in a different way.
The non-profit started by offering sandwiches to the homeless downtown 15 years ago and has now evolved into something much bigger.
"We're seeing a lot more families, we're seeing a lot more kids come through," Food for Thought's Executive Director Tonya Scherf said. "It's not just homeless individuals that we're serving. And about 10 years ago we branched into offering food pantries."
But providing meals multiple times a month is not easy or cheap. Especially since the fresh produce they offer costs the most.
"It takes about $650 per pantry, every month, to run that pantry," Scherf said. "That's just the food pantry. That takes into account, the food, the staff, the truck maintenance, the gas, and things like that."
For both of these groups, it's the first time they've been selected as a charity for the Dana Open.
Each group had to write up a proposal and submit them, indicating how much they would like to raise.
TutorSmart is hoping to get anywhere upwards of $30,000. Meanwhile, Food for Thought is looking to raise $15,000. Both groups will find out how much they raised by the end of the year.
More local headlines from WTOL 11