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For the past 40 years, the Sportsmen and Businessmen’s Charitable Organization has been working to give back to those in need in the Coffee County Community. SBCO President Carter Sain spoke with members of The Manchester Rotary Club about the nonprofit’s continued work in the community during its regular meeting Feb. 27 at The Mercantile Café.

A second-generation member, Sain said the nonprofit looks to continue the work started by his father and others back in the 1980s.

“They decided, this feels pretty good,” Sain said recalling the SBCO’s early days. “We are helping folks in the community that need help and let’s do it again.”

“They just kept doing that until the next thing I know its 20 years later and I am in my 20s and we are doing this every fall,” he added.

Known for its signature annual fundraiser, the SBCO is able to raise thousands of dollars each year to donate back to the community.

“We do one fundraiser a year and have been increasingly successful in raising money,” Sain said. “If there is an easy thing it has been to raise the money because the community and the supporters have been just really great.”

The SBCO has helped with a variety of causes throughout the years, ranging from helping to fund playground equipment to purchasing mobility aids for individuals and helping Manchester’s V.F.W. build a pavilion.

“We don’t have a narrow lane that we give to,” Sain said. “Last calendar year we gave about $90,000 back into the community, $30,000 of which benefitted the area school systems.”

Mini grants totaling $30,000 were also provided to the schools, which primarily focused on classrooms but also some other educational initiatives.

“Either to buy technology or materials to run some educational program in their classroom that they wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise,” Sain said.

While the community continues to be generous with its support of the SBCO, Sain said it can be challenging to identify those in the community that could benefit from the nonprofit.

“The challenge that we have is to find needs within the community and meet those needs,” he said.

Those who might know someone who might benefit from some assistance from the SBCO can call its referral phone line at 931-728-5048.

“Really I just get to talk about it and I get to help raise the money, but it is folks in the community who point the need out to us that are doing the critical work of connecting us,” Sain said.