Ron Dumas, who uses golf to build stronger futures for at-risk children, received the 2023 Greater Cincinnati Jefferson Award for outstanding community service, part of the national Jefferson Award program that is known as the Nobel Prize for community service.
Dumas, of Clifton, founded Reaching Out for Kids in 1997, using golf to teach life values and promote education. The free program serves more than 350 young people annually.
Dumas becomes a finalist for one of the five national Jefferson Awards presented in New York in October.
The local awards program is administered by the Rotary Club of Cincinnati, which hosted the awards ceremony on March 23 at the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza Hotel in downtown Cincinnati.
Finalists were Joe and Noel Julnes-Dehner of Hyde Park, who created the Summer Camp Reading program, helping children retain and expand reading skills, and Bruce Kintner of Cold Spring, Ky., who created Samaritan Care Care Clinic to help low-income individuals keep jobs and build independence by providing affordable car care.
Through the Reaching Out for Kids program, Dumas has helped more than 200 young students get college scholarships. Dumas said four program graduates are doctors, two are airline pilots, several are engineers and four play golf professionally.
“This program is about more than golf,” Dumas said. “It’s about what they can become in life.”
The Rotary Club of Cincinnati partners on the Jefferson Award with the Cincinnati Enquirer, WKRC-TV Local 12 and the national award sponsor Magnifying Good. For information, see www.cincinnatirotary.org