TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
HOW IT ALL BEGAN In May 2014, friends of Gail and Dr. Ed Eichler held a crawfish boil to celebrate the life of their son, Clay, who passed away earlier that year. The crawfish boil was held on Clay’s birthday (a birthday shared with his older brother, Edward) as an opportunity to share memories and uplift the family. It was quickly evident that this memorial would become an annual gathering to raise funds for the community. The Clay Eichler Memorial Fund was created in 2014, and the first Clay’s Golf and Guitars fundraiser was held May 30, 2015, at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. For the past nine years, the Clay Eichler Memorial Fund has benefitted local organizations, some from their inception, in hopes of making a positive impact on the Texarkana community in memory of Clay. “We pick our recipients after carefully going over their missions and how they would use money the community would essentially give,” Eichler said. “We tried to choose organizations which would provide services to the most people in our area.” CLAY’S GOLF AND GUITARS THROUGH THE YEARS…
To date, the Clay Eichler Memorial Fund has awarded over $ 1.2 million to local organizations.
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COMMUNITY & CULTURE
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