Media day for the upcoming TOUR Championship, a flagship event for the PGA Tour that will take place from August 20-25 at East Lake Golf Club, took place on Monday. The greens at the East Atlanta-based club looked tournament-ready as a shotgun start to a round of 18 began just after 8:30 a.m. Thirty of the top players in the world, including world number one Scott Scheffler, will make their way to Atlanta to compete for the championship.
The history of the East Lake community and places like East Lake Meadows and Villages of East Lake goes back a long way and can be complicated in parts. The East Lake Golf Club, routinely named one of the top five golf courses in the state of Georgia by Golf Magazine, is in the center of the community, but has not always been a part of the once majority Black neighborhood.
People like East Lake Foundation President and CEO Ilham Askia are working to change not only that public perception but also what East Lake Golf Club means to the community surrounding it. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the East Lake Foundation’s founding.
When asked what the 30 years mean to her, Askia said it means the foundation’s legacy continues and needs to continue.
“Three decades of transformative work continue. It says that legacy is important, and we are continuing to innovate and provide services for families in the East Lake community and greater Atlanta community,” Askia, who is also a co-founder of Gideon’s Promise, an Atlanta-based criminal justice reform organization, said.
Askia, a Buffalo, New York native who moved to Georgia just over 20 years ago, said the purpose of the East Lake Foundation is to ensure the voices of the families who live, work, and attend school in the East Lake community are amplified.
“We wake up every day thinking about equity, about the legacy residents, and about how we can best support low-income families to help with economic mobility,” Askia said. “If that is our job and role as an organization, we will always exist, because there will always be new families, and there will always be a next generation.”
Askia said inclusivity is a core value for the foundation. She used the term “resident-centered” as a description of the work being done to no longer deny access to the financial opportunities that are possible at East Lake Golf Club. Those opportunities don’t always include playing golf or being a caddy for a golfer or a group setting out for 18 holes. The security team at the front gate of East Lake Golf Club on Monday morning included a Black man and a woman. The staff in the kitchen at East Lake Golf Club is entirely made up of Black and brown men and women. These are jobs that feed families. Some of whom are located in East Lake.
“Our primary focus is our families, and why this whole community transformed in the first place,” Askia said. “People were historically denied access to opportunity, and we want to make sure they receive opportunity, and help them define success for themselves.”
The TOUR Championship recently announced a $7.2 million contribution to local nonprofits in 2024, nearly half a million more than in 2023, according to TOUR Championship Vice President and Executive Director Alex Urban.
One of the projects that the East Lake Foundation and Atlanta Land Trust collaborated on is the Trust at East Lake, a 40-unit development of townhouses created to provide adequate housing opportunities to lower-income residents of the neighborhood.
According to Askia, seven of the eight homes that have been built are currently occupied. The project broke ground in March 2023 and is expected to be completed by spring 2026, just in time for the FIFA World Cup. Residents of the Villages of East Lake apartments will get a first shot at procuring the two-bedroom and three-bedroom townhomes.
These are just some of the ways the foundation is working to keep East Lake’s community involved and invested.
With one of the biggest professional golf tournaments in the country taking place in Atlanta (not to be confused with the one that takes place in Augusta every spring), East Lake Foundation partners with the TOUR Championship to gift a number of grounds tickets for the tournament to local residents. The tickets allow for two children aged 15 and under to enter for free with an adult.
“We have been working really hard with the TOUR Championship and our other partners across the community is to really market that,” Askia said.
Golf-related entertainment and experiences aside, the foundation is making educational efforts that are changing the way the community views East Lake Golf Club.
A culinary arts program featuring students from Drew Charter School, which is located on Eva Davis Drive in the heart of the East Lake community, brings them into the kitchen at the golf club and prepares them for careers in the hospitality industry.
“We did our second cohort this year; they just graduated with a certification in culinary arts,” Askia said. “Some of our students are caddies here, and they have interned here. These are children who live in the community.”
Askia said the leadership teams at the East Lake Golf Club and the East Lake Foundation have been “intentional about finding moments in time to open it up to everyone.”
There is also the “Run for East Lake” 5K and a legacy luncheon, where seniors came to the club to tour it and learn more about what kind of community-focused work takes place at East Lake Golf Club.
“If we can constantly communicate to everyone who lives here, that without the generous support of the TOUR Championship, the East Lake Foundation would not be able to do what it is doing,” Askia said. “We still need support, but the East Lake Foundation is still working hard on what I call “soft skill investments”: financial health and well-being, community wellness, and mental health. That’s our next iteration of our work.”
The TOUR Championship, a flagship event of the PGA Tour, will be held from August 20 to 25 at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. Photo by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice