The Batesville Exchange Club is broke.

That’s good news and bad news. Bad news for the obvious reason. Good news because it means that the $5,000 or so they had a couple of weeks ago has been distributed to community organizations for the purpose it was collected.

The last $2,000 went to the Boys and Girls Club of North Mississippi. You may have seen the check passing photo on these pages last week, a handoff from Exchange President Connie Hawkins to Boys and Girls Club Director Fay Morris.

Most of the remainder went to the Child Abuse Prevention Center in Lafayette County and to other child abuse prevention efforts. Preventing child abuse is the Exchange Club’s core mission, like sight conservation is to the Lions Club. And like the Lions Club, they donate to many other local causes not necessarily related to their core mission.

 A couple of weeks ago when the Exchange Club’s treasurer announced the surplus of money in the organization’s service account, several members were nonplussed, as though they had been caught holding on to somebody else’s money.

Former mayor and Exchange member Bobby Baker put it succinctly, as he is more and more prone to do with each year’s distance from his last re-election campaign.

“We need to act like the good Democrats we are and get rid of this money,” Baker said. Or something like that.

So they quickly gave it all away to the people for whom they had collected it in the first place. Neat, huh?

Which brings us to the point of these lines. The Exchange Club needs more money and one of their two big annual fund-raisers is scheduled for Saturday, May 2. It’s the annual “Caring for Kids” Scramble Tournament at the Panola Country Club. Sponsorships are available from $50 to $500. A four-player scramble team can sign up for $300 by April 29, $400 thereafter. Tee off at 8 a.m. Prizes awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places at noon.

Golf carts are furnished as will be delicious food which will be provided by PawPaws Restaurant.

All of it will be fun. That’s the beauty of a scramble tournament; it allows serious and not-so-serious golfers to play side-by-side and everyone to have a good time.

The Exchange Club invites you to join them — as a tournament sponsor and/or player. Fun is even funner when it’s for a good cause.

And the club promises that it will see that the money you help it raise will be quickly disbursed to those causes for which it is intended. So they can do it all over again.

Exchange member Robert Rawson is a good contact for further information, 563-4941.