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CGA and ACE Scholarships Team Up to Change Lives

In 2012, when the Colorado Golf Association launched the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy (SCLA) at CommonGround Golf Course, we needed help. One of the primary objectives of the SCLA was to strengthen the pool of candidates for

Golf Course architect, Tom Doak, is that golf is a walking game. The routing and placement of features of CommonGround were done to make it a walker-friendly experience. This approach helped make CommonGround Golf Course an ideal course to create a caddie program.

The next challenge was finding the right kids who had the financial need and academic drive to qualify for the Evans Scholarship. Enter, ACE Scholarships. The mission of ACE Scholarships, a non-profit founded in 2000, was almost too good to be true—to provide children of low-income families with scholarships to private schools in grades K-12. Linking up the CGA and ACE is like teaming up Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods — when both were in their prime!

Starting in 2012 the CGA and ACE rolled up their sleeves and went to work. ACE opened its doors to the CGA and helped make its scholarship recipients and their families aware of the life-changing opportunity of an Evans Scholarship. ACE quickly became the CGA’s number-one source to recruit eight and ninth graders for the SCLA. The results?

Since its inception in 2012, the SCLA has helped qualify over 40 student-caddies for the Evans Scholarship. Conservatively valued at $120,000 per scholarship that is nearly $5 million in college scholarships.

But that is only part of the story. The Evans Scholarship is so much more than a financial re - ward. All Evans Scholars live together in the Evans Chapter House at 1029 Broadway in Boulder. The former Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity House now houses 55 Evans Scholars, young men and women from an array of diverse backgrounds. The Evans House is a community where former caddies share the “common ground” of pursuing their dream of a college education.

One of the latest to earn this “full walk” to college is Ellie Rodriguez—a senior at Mullen High School and ACE Scholarship recipient. Ellie began caddying at CommonGround in 2019. Over the next four summers, Ellie completed more than 100 “loops” (rounds), and maintained a near-perfect 4.0 GPA, all while participating in an array of extracurricular activities that would make your head spin.

“Receiving the Evans Scholarship is absolutely incredible,” Ellie reflected recently. “My parents worked so hard to put me and my brother on a path to achieve our dreams, and this is my way of thanking them. College is so expensive. Thanks to the Evans Scholarship, the Solich program and ACE I can say to my parents—‘I’ve got it from here.’”

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