As the FedExCup Playoffs continue with the BMW Championship at Wilmington Country Club, an impeccably manicured stretch of Delaware terrain awaits the Top 70 PGA TOUR players remaining in the quest for the FedExCup. It’s a place where, on Sunday afternoon, one person’s dream will reach fruition.

Just six miles away, though, in the Riverside community of Northeast Wilmington, it has been a much different story.

Located at the intersection of Route 13 Business and Harvey Road, just west of railroad tracks and industrial properties, Riverside has been a place where hopes and dreams were rare commodities and, thus, fleeting. Once the site of housing projects post-World War II, over time, the working-class community lost its footing to what became the dominant factors of poverty and violence.

“Riverside did well for some time,” said Tom Humphrey, Wilmington Country Club Tournament Committee Chairman for the 2022 BMW Championship. “If you look at the history, the Riverside area was a nice residential community for veterans and their families. But, over time, people began leaving the area and it became a very poor community. They were not getting the resources they needed.”

While a lot of good folks have tried a lot of things to help over time, Humphrey insists it’s not a problem easily solved with money alone.

“Somehow, some way, you have to touch the community and build it within,” Humphrey said. “Sometimes that’s very difficult, because there is a lot of skepticism and doubt.”

For nearly a decade now, Humphrey has served on the Board at a Wilmington Charter School, East Side Charter. With it being a part of a low-income area, he witnesses first-hand the challenges those children and families face in that environment.

A few years ago, Humphrey was given the opportunity to serve as the Wilmington Country Club Tournament Chairman. Enthusiastically, he accepted.

“It occurred to me one day early in the process how wonderful it was that the PGA TOUR was coming to Delaware,” Humphrey said. “It’s a very big thing, as you can imagine. Nothing like this has ever really come to the state before. The Governor, Mayor – everyone is just really excited about it.

“But it’s so much more than the PGA TOUR’s BMW Championship being contested in Delaware.”

After hearing a speech given by Tom Cousins on what he did to revitalize the East Lake community in Atlanta, home of the season-ending TOUR Championship, Humphrey found Cousins’ vision compelling and inspiring. From that, the REACH Riverside Development Project was born (REACH is an acronym for Redevelopment, Education and Community Health).

“What Tom Cousins showed us is that if your heart is in the right place, you can create change from within,” Humphrey said. “Yes, it does require money and resources, but it must also have the human spirit.”

Charlie McDowell, now the REACH Riverside Development Project Chair, was so moved that he took it a step further by traveling with a Wilmington developer and Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki to Atlanta to see for themselves what Cousins had done.

“Charlie and the others came back excited,” said Humphrey. “They put together a proposal for Purpose Built Communities in hopes of having the Riverside area of Wilmington added to its growing list of transformed communities.”

As a result of Cousins’ work, not only is PGA TOUR golf being rewarded in Atlanta, but so, too, are the 30-and-growing number of Purpose Built communities around the country which have reaped the benefits of the learnings from East Lake. Riverside in Wilmington became the 19th neighborhood selected nationally.

“Cousins did what he did at East Lake and it’s there for everyone at the TOUR Championship to see,” Humphrey said. “So, the Top 30 in the FedExCup after the BMW Championship here in Wilmington will pack up and go play East Lake, where this thing started.”

With work well underway, Riverside’s community now enjoys all-new market price and subsidized housing, as well as a new teen center and community center. The charter school in Riverside is even incorporating a new STEM program (science, technology, engineering and math).

“It’s a total revitalization,” said Humphrey. “In my mind, I’m thinking what a wonderful testament it is to the PGA TOUR. The cities and communities in which TOUR events are held benefit from the tournaments long after they’re over.”

Purpose Built Communities works to end such difficult and deeply rooted issues as intergenerational poverty, hazardous environments rife with crime and failing schools.

The very foundation of the Purpose Built Communities model is to foster quality and sustainability.

“What Purpose Built Communities offered was guidance on how to do more of a holistic change effort,” Humphrey said. “The key is to have the political capital, the people that make decisions on housing authorities, Mayors and other folks to rally behind it.”

Initial steps of REACH Riverside and Purpose Built Communities occurred before many of those involved knew much about the PGA TOUR, Humphrey admitted. Now, though, it’s here and just six miles away from this week’s BMW Championship.

It doesn’t take much to be able to connect the two entities into one big success. The BMW Championship is focused on the Evans Scholars Foundation, which provides full college scholarships. The scholarships are life-changing to those who earn them in that the awards aren’t based solely on citizenship, but also financial need.

“We consider things like whether or not these scholarships would make the difference between a kid going to college and not going to college,” Humphrey said. “Many times, the recipients are the first individuals in his or her family to ever go to college.

“This all means the world to me. I decided that when I retired, I wanted to get involved and give back to my community. I thought a lot about it and decided that education was the most important thing. Poverty is a very tough nut to crack. In my mind, the only real way you can give an individual the tools to beat poverty is through education.”

As far as a direct contribution from the tournament to Purpose Built Communities, the primary form of assistance to be gained from the BMW Championship will be exposure and opportunities for REACH Riverside’s and Purpose Built Communities’ stories to be shared.

That, Humphrey said, is worth its weight in gold.

“I didn’t fully appreciate all that goes on behind the scenes at how PGA TOUR events are run,” Humphrey said. “For the past two years, to be a part of the process has just been fascinating to me. I’ve learned so much about how much the TOUR truly gives back to the communities in which it runs its events.”

Five years ago, an organization of local Wilmington business and government leaders formed the REACH Riverside Development Project to coordinate and lead the effort to transform the Riverside community into a healthy, vibrant place to live.

And, with the assistance of Purpose Built Communities, quite literally right before everyone’s eyes, exactly that is happening.