My name is Jake I’m a Midland native and am currently an intern with the Central Michigan District Health Department (CMDHD) as a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) and Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) student at Michigan State University. As you may know, our community suffers from food shortages. In addition, many of our citizens do not make appropriate food choices. Because of this, I came up with an idea of hosting an ice fishing fundraiser entitled Sportsman for Their Neighbors March 10th on Houghton Lake at the South Shore DNR Boat launch. This tournament will help to fund a district wide health initiative known as Together We Can (TWC) which began after the county health rankings were released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as well as the University of Wisconsin which had Clare County as the most unhealthy county in Michigan (more information on TWC can be found at CMDHD.ORG under the Together We Can link on the left hand side). Not only will the funding help with TWC, but we will also provide fresh caught fish to the community with education on how fish as well as wild game is a healthy alternative to processed foods. We will also be having a wild game drop off to donate meat to those in need as well as a can food drive. The tournament will be from 8:00AM-1:00PM with weigh in at 1:00 PM. Registration will begin at 7:00 AM. We are looking for volunteers for fish fileting after the tournament as well. This will be a two man team tourney with a fee of $15 per angler prior to the day of the tourney and $20 per angler the day of the tourney. The beachfront hotel (beachfronthl.com) has agreed to a room rate of $69.99 with a jacuzzi upgrade for an additional $10 a night. I also need to give a huge thanks to Lyman from Lyman's on the lake as he is donating the first place prizes which are for Largest pike, Largest walleye, heaviest stringer of walleye, heaviest mess of pan fish, largest perch, largest crappie, and largest sunfish. There have also been a ton of other prizes donated from local businesses as well for door prizes. The flyer, registration, and rules form can be picked up at Lyman's or can be seen on our website at
http://www.cmdhd.org/events/fishing_tournament.htm . shoot me an e-mail at
[email protected] and direct any other questions my way.
