For the second June in a row, Winnipeg entrepreneur, philanthropist and community activist Earl Barish will be heading to Calgary with a refrigerated truck full of Salisbury House food. Both Barish and the food’s final destination will be the tailgate luncheon at the semi-private Redwood Meadows Golf and Country Club, where the second annual Calgary Winnipeg Club Charity Golf Tournament will be taking place on June 24.

The Calgary Winnipeg Club is a multicultural group comprised of about 30 former Winnipeggers now living in that Alberta city. Among other interests, the members share a love of golf, a desire to give back to their communities, and a fondness for their hometown of Winnipeg. The tournament gives them the opportunity to indulge in all three of these pursuits.

Barish’s initial involvement with the tournament came about as a result of the organizers’ nostalgia for Salisbury House nips.

“They thought about Sals because they grew up in the north end and the Sals on Main and Matheson was a place they spent a lot of time,” Barish explains. When he heard that organizers were planning to donate half of the tournament proceeds to the Rady Jewish Community Centre, as well as to a few other Winnipeg charities, he was more than happy to figure out a way to oblige their cravings for his restaurant’s famous food.

 “That was the stimulus for me,” he says. “If people in other cities are willing to raise money for Winnipeg,
I am prepared to get involved.”

This involvement included providing the hamburgers, chips, coleslaw and donuts for the tournament, arranging a way to transport them to Calgary, and finding people to prepare them. Grateful for his participation, tournament organizers then invited Barish to select which other Winnipeg charities he thought were deserving of funding. Unsurprisingly, Barish chose those that were dearest to his heart, the Children’s Variety Club, the Chai Folk Ensemble and B’nai Brith Manitoba.

In turn, the money directed to B’nai Brith was used last year to support the organization’s Night at the Goldeyes event. This annual summer event provides baseball tickets, food and a gift to 600 youth and adults from a variety of Winnipeg-based social service agencies, among them Jewish Child and Family Service, Marymound, and the Boys and Girls Club of Winnipeg.
 
Following this year’s sold out tournament, Barish will again be given the privilege of divvying up the Winnipeg half of the proceeds, which are expected to exceed the $10,000 raised in 2009. B’nai Brith Manitoba and its Night at the Goldeyes program, Barish says, will be at the receiving end yet again.
 
“The Calgary Winnipeg golf tournament is a great experience from the Salisbury point of view and a worthwhile opportunity,” Barish says.

In addition to giving a group of former Winnipeggers the chance to play a round of golf, indulge in the food of their youth and share it with their Calgarian friends, it raises money for several important causes, both in their new hometown and in their old one.