Giving back as a family

The Kissoon Annual Charity Golf Tournament raises funds for those in need in Guyana, Canada and other parts of the world.

The Kissoon Annual Charity Golf Tournament was started in 2000. Sugrim Kissoon, patriarch of the Kissoon clan, passed away in 1979. Though he never visited Canada, his children decided that they wanted his name to be forever remembered in their adopted home land.

The tournament took its birth at the Mayfield Golf and Country Club in Caledon, Canada. There were eighty golfers. Little did the organizers of the first tournament know that the “Kissoon Classic” would over the years become one of the most successful community tournaments.
The first four tournaments were held at Mayfield, Canada. But as the tournament grew in size and stature so did the demand for bigger and better facilities. From 2004 to 2007, the tournament was hosted at the Woodbine Golf Club, Canada. It became a full shotgun tournament in 2004 with 144 golfers. There was no turning back. The tournament has been completely sold out every year since.
In 2008, it was necessary to move to Royal Ontario, a golf course with a larger banquet facility. The after-golf banquet had grown substantially. Many supporters, who do not golf, would attend, just to be part of this very special event.
Sugrim Kissoon was a devout Hindu. In his name, the proceeds from the golf tournament were donated exclusively to the Devi Mandir in Pickering, Ontario. This exclusive support continued for ten years as that would have been what Sugrim, his children believed, wanted. But the children decided to change the focus of their charitable efforts and wanted to give back to the Canadian and Guyanese communities.
Since 2010, the proceeds have been shared among a number of charities that have focused on the health of children in Canada and in Guyana. The Toronto Sick Kids Foundation, Guyana Three Rivers Foundation, and the Guyana Help the Kids Foundation were the main beneficiaries. Funds from the “putting” contest, over the years, have been donated to the Canadian Cancer Society.
Then the Kissoon children decided to add another dimension to their charitable work – the education of children. To this end, they have created, in memory of their parents, the Latchmin and Sugrim Kissoon Scholarship Fund. This scholarship assists a number of deserving high school students, who will be going on to college or university. The scholarship is done in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Brampton Flower City and the Pandit Sirju Persaud Scholarship Fund. The scholarship also includes funding for students, pursuing studies at the University of Guyana.
Of note, the backbone of this charity is Dhaman Kissoon. Born in Guyana, Dhaman comes from a family of lawyers, High Court judges and legal luminaries in Guyana, Barbados, England and Canada. For the last eighteen years, he has been a lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University in Canada.
“I migrated to Canada in 1976 and graduated as a lawyer in Canada in 1991. I own my own law firm and have been teaching law at Queen’s Faculty of Law since 1990. The golf tournament was started in 2000 in recognition of my deceased father. For the first ten years, the golf tournament assisted a Hindu temple in Pickering, because that was what my father wanted. But in 2010 the focus of the tournament changed. Health of children became a major concern and so now we’re supporting the Toronto Sick Kids Foundation, Guyana Help the Kids, and the Three Rivers Kids Foundation,” Dhaman Kissoon stated in an interview with Guyana Times Sunday Magazine.
“In addition, this year we are partnering with the Brampton Flower City Rotary Club, of which I am the president, to give 10 deserving scholarships to graduating high school students going on to college or university. We have also assisted an orphanage in India this year for the first time,” he added.
On June 19, this year, the 14th annual charity golf tournament was successfully held at the Royal Ontario Golf Club. The funds raised will be given to the various organizations in Canada, Guyana and beyond, as the charity has been doing for years.
For more information on the work of the Kissoon family visit www.kissoongolftournament.com