Coffee Cares hosts inaugural golf tournament

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The Coffee Cares nonprofit received a $5,000 donation courtesy of the Java Medical Group during its inaugural golf tournament at Sept. 11 at WillowBrook Golf Club in Manchester.

Nonprofit founder Bappa Mukherji said goal of the nonprofit is to raise funds for area residents struggling to pay their copays and deductibles for medical care.

“What I really wanted was for this charity to be able to raise money, because here is the problem,” Mukherji said. “You have a lot of people they need medical care, medical care is expensive right now and even if you have insurance like Medicare, you still have copays, you still have deductibles and so what we wanted to do was to help the people that were struggling with their income but do have medical conditions to still be able to come in and see physicians.”

“We are talking about people who are struggling and having to decide which medications they are having to fill this month,” he added.

Mukherji said that while he got the Coffee Cares nonprofit off the ground, he has sense stepped down from the board to allow community members to oversee it.

Volunteer Rebecca French said 20 teams of four participated in the tournament.

“There are a lot of people in that gray area, where they make too much for those subsidized programs but they don’t make enough that it is not uncomfortable,” she said. “So all the money from this goes to that nonprofit.”

Mukherji said his goal for Coffee Cares is to see it continue to grow and be able to help community members in need.

“We would like to see more participation, part of that is it is the first year,” he said. “Everyone has to know that we exist, they have to know what the purpose of the charity is and we have to show people that we have helped, you have to be able to show some success stories and have some people stand up and say they helped me.”

“The main thing I would like to see is I would like to see the funds that are being raised going to the people that need the money in order to kind of connect that loop,” Mukherji said.