From left Stop the Bleed instructor Brian Wilcox and Southern Tier Health Care System grant writer Kelsey Boudin address participants of Brick Tamland's Celebrity Golf Tournament in early July at St. Bonaventure Golf Course.

ALLEGANY — Brick Tamland’s Celebrity Golf Tournament was at first meant to be a fun scramble amongst friends. It soon became a sizeable fundraiser for a local lifesaving program.

Held recently at St. Bonaventure Golf Course in Allegany, the first-year tourney raised $1,250 for the local Stop the Bleed program, administered at Southern Tier Health Care System Inc. with instructional assistance from Mercy Flight of WNY.

The name was a silly play on a line from the 2004 comedy “Anchorman” starring Will Ferrell, according to tournament organizer Kelsey Boudin, a grant writer for Southern Tier Health Care System Inc. in Olean. The tournament at the nine-hole course drew a full playing field of amateur golfers.

“It started as something that was just meant for fun, but why not tie that to something that actually can have a positive community impact?” Boudin said. “We’re always seeking grant funding for Stop the Bleed, but those processes are so competitive. A golf tournament was a great way to support the program and take complete ownership of the fundraising process. We’re looking forward to making it even bigger and better next year.”

The money will be used to offset the cost of trainings and to purchase 20 emergency bleeding-control kits, which organizations can obtain after participating in training to be placed in strategic locations. The comprehensive kits include medical tools like tourniquets and packing gauze to stop severe bleeding. The local program’s goal is to equip more public locations with kits, similarly to the accessibility of fire extinguishers and automated external defibrillators.

Stop the Bleed is a national initiative established as a result of the Hartford Consensus following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. The American College of Surgeons after the massacre agreed that more average citizens must be trained to respond to mass casualty events.

The local Stop the Bleed program has trained more than 600 people across Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties since launching in November 2017.