Kevin and Brittany Kisner start foundation to give back

Kevin Kisner has always wanted to be a star on the golf course, but not only for the sake of being one of the biggest names on the PGA Tour. The Aiken native and his wife, Brittany, also wanted to be able to use his platform to give back to the Aiken area.

Brittany was a speech language pathologist in Aiken and worked with children in the community and saw the need to help out families in the area. The husband and wife tandem put their heads together to come up with a way to not only help existing charitable organizations but also fill any voids that may exist.

The result of the brainstorming was the Kevin and Brittany Kisner Foundation.

"We've always wanted to help our community and parlay my success into helping others in the area be able to achieve greater things," Kevin said. "It's been a passion of my wife's to be able to start a foundation."

The mission of the non-profit organization is to create a positive environment for children to grow into responsible adults. Charitable funding is provided for organizations that promote childhood fitness, health, education and opportunities to participate in sports. Brittany's goal is to reach out to and have an impact on kids from birth all the way through college-aged students.

"We have some great organizations in the community that are already doing great work, but they need more resources," Brittany said. "One part of what we do is donate to some of the already existing organizations that fall into our mission statement. We also want to start our own programs to fill in the gap of needs that aren't being met."

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The foundation has hit the ground running, with its first fundraiser already sold out. The Kisners wanted to put on a top-level event in Aiken County. So they enlisted the help of local businesses like Aiken Pest Control, Aiken Regional, EDTS Cyber and Electrolux. He also called on musicians Charles Kelley, of Lady Antebellum, and Darius Rucker to headline a concert at their Clays, Greens and Strings event at Sage Valley Hunting Club.

The private event, which includes VIP Sporting Clays Shoot and Dinner and a private concert with silent auction is already sold out.

"We were blown away with the response once we started to drop hints that we were going to have a fund raising event," Kevin said. "We tried to make it a very high-end event where people felt like no matter what they would come back the following year. It's a fantastic venue and we've got two great performers in the country music industry coming down to perform for us."

Brittany added that the goal is to make the event bigger and better next year after being impressed with the response, which came with little promotion other than word of mouth.

Kevin and Brittany recently welcomed the birth of their second child, and their family and motivated the couple to get the ball rolling on starting the foundation.

"Kevin and I strongly believe that every child in this world deserves every opportunity," Brittany said. "If we can help children that might not have the opportunity to play a sport get a chance to play a sport or we can help provide early intervention to a child with special needs, who might not otherwise get it, that's what we want to do. We want to make a difference for the children in the CSRA so they have the same opportunities our children will have. Every child is equally important and deserves that."

Anyone interested in learning more about the foundation can visit www.kisnerfoundation.com.

This article is written by Eric Russell from Aiken Standard, S.C. and was legally licensed via the Tribune Content Agency through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.