Jim, Tabitha Furyk host 14th annual 'Hope for the Holidays' providing meals for families in need during holiday season

Jim Furyk's career has seen him record some impressive numbers. At the 2013 BMW Championship, Furyk became the sixth player in PGA TOUR history to post a 59. Three years later, he bettered that at the 2016 Travelers Championship with a final-round 12-under 58.

On Thursday in the TPC Sawgrass parking lot, the 54-year-old PGA TOUR Champions star was front and center with wife, Tabitha, as the couple hosted the 14th annual “Hope for the Holidays” event, providing relief to food-insecure kids and families in northeast Florida during the holiday season. Where Jim spent his golf career fixated on low numbers, the goal for this night was to post the largest numbers possible.

The Jim & Tabitha Furyk Foundation provided food and supplies to pack more than 6,000 holiday meals, with Jacksonville-area students, families and businesses volunteering to offload, stack, arrange and fill bags with a record 12 different food items. That takes that number to an astounding total of 72,000 items of food.

With help from the sponsors of Constellation FURYK & FRIENDS presented by Circle K, the Jim & Tabitha Furyk Foundation increased the number of bags from 500 in the first year to 6,000 in 2024.

When volunteers walked through the line with open bags, one item from each of the 12 was placed into the bag, securing a meal of canned ham, green beans, canned corn, macaroni and cheese, chicken stuffing, peas and carrots, cream of mushroom soup, cranberry sauce, peaches, mashed potatoes and corn muffin mix for children who might otherwise go hungry during the long holiday break.

Once the bags were filled, each was loaded onto awaiting trucks for distribution. The event results in the delivery of the bags to children identified as food insecure and their families in Duval and St. Johns Counties, via – among other avenues – Title 1 schools, food banks and various additional charitable organizations.

With over 14 million children at risk of hunger in the United States, many students qualify for a federal free or reduced-price meal plan at school. Understandably, many of those kids grow anxious with each approaching weekend, as the only assured meals are those provided Monday through Friday at school.

“These kids we’re feeding from Title 1 schools on free and reduced breakfast and lunch generally don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” Tabitha Furyk said. “They might not have parents at home. They may even be homeless. The need is continuing to grow and this is something we wanted to help this community with.”

In addition to the Jim & Tabitha Furyk Foundation’s efforts to alleviate some of the hunger woes in the community they call home, they aim to increase awareness of this issue.

“A lot of this is about awareness,” said Jim Furyk. “A lot of folks in the community don’t know where their next meal may come from. While a lot of this is to band the community together for families to bring their kids out, it’s also about awareness. Specifically, it’s about becoming aware of the needs in our community. With that, we have so many generous organizations and individuals.”

“The vision behind this volunteer-driven event was to have something for kids to have a hands-on activity to be a part of and give back, as opposed to just making a donation,” said Tabitha Furyk. “It started with just the kids, who brought their classmates and then brought their teachers. We’ve got grandparents bringing grandkids and high school teams from all over the city.”

Other involved groups included Girl Scout troops and National Honor Society groups.

“The crazy thing about this is that we started with so few bags and so few volunteers,” Tabitha Furyk explained. “Every year now, we set up this massive tent and had all this food and we can only hope that people come to pack it – and they do. They never let us down.

Tabitha Furyk also noted that people and organizations from all over come out so they can truly understand the feeling of giving to those in the community that really need it.”

“One year, Jim and I got to help deliver the bags to some of the schools,” Tabitha Furyk recalled. “When we handed these bags off to the little kids – who knew they weren’t toys – they were jumping up and down and had tears in their eyes. Jim saw that, looked at me and said ‘OK, we’re never going to stop doing this’.”

This was the 14th annual “Hope for the Holidays." Jim Furyk would be hard-pressed to find another number which brings him greater joy… until, of course, this time next year.