APO Community Health Center

⛳️🍺 JUST DAYS AWAY. STILL TIME TO GET YOUR BALLS IN THE GAME.

The APO Open Mini-Golf Pub Crawl is THIS SATURDAY, and there’s still time to get your foursome in.

⛳️ $100 per team of 4 = $25 a person.

Be serious. You’ve blown $25 on MUCH worse decisions.

An unnecessary round of shots.
Late-night food you absolutely did not need.
An Uber ride you don’t remember requesting.
Something from Amazon that showed up Tuesday and made you ask, “What the heck was I thinking?”

At least THIS questionable financial decision helps APO Community Health Center. ❤️

Grab three equally irresponsible friends and spend Saturday putting your balls in strange holes all over town while raising money for a dang good cause.

🍺 Drinking? Probably.
⛳️ Ball handling? Definitely.
😈 Poor decisions? We’re not here to judge.
❤️ Doing some actual good? ABSOLUTELY YES!

It’s $25. You’re going to blow it over the weekend anyway.

Might as well give it away for charity.

👉 Register: www.givebutter.com/OPEN2026

APO OPEN: Come for the balls. Stay because you forgot where you parked.

Bizarre Bar- The Flea Springfield MO- Hold Fast Brewing- Inner Circle Springfield- J.O.B Public House- Martha's Vineyard- Mix Ultralounge- MudLounge Coffee & Cocktails- Shot Shack

🚨⛳ THIS IS YOUR $20 WARNING. ⛳🚨

We’ve mentioned it.
We’ve reminded you.
We’ve politely suggested it.
And now? We’re done being polite. 😂

TODAY is the LAST DAY to register your team of 4 for the APO Open for just $80.

At the stroke of midnight, that same team registration becomes $100.

Same mini golf. Same bars. Same party buses. Same questionable putting. Same ridiculous amount of fun.

Just $20 more because you procrastinated. 😬

And really…what could you do with that $20 instead?

🍻 Buy a round.
🍕 Grab some food.
💵 Put it toward your bar tab.
❤️ Donate it to APO.
🔥 Or dramatically set it on fire.*

The APO Open Mini-Golf Pub Crawl is THIS COMING SATURDAY, September 19, and today is your LAST CHANCE to get your team in for $80.

Surely between your friends, coworkers, neighbors, exes, questionable acquaintances and that one person whose name you don't actually remember but you've been Facebook friends with since 2011, you can find THREE PEOPLE. 😂

👉 www.givebutter.com/APO2026

*APO Community Health Center does not actually recommend setting money on fire. We recommend giving it to us. 😂

8:03 A.M. Central Time
Twenty-five years ago, at this exact moment, everything changed.

For 17 minutes, we had watched smoke pour from the North Tower of the World Trade Center and tried to comprehend how such a terrible accident could have happened.

Then, before our eyes, a second plane appeared. It struck the South Tower. And suddenly, we knew. This was not an accident.
Something far more sinister was unfolding. America was under attack.

For generations who had only read about December 7, 1941, in history books, there was an eerie realization that perhaps we were now living through one of those days ourselves—a day people would forever remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when the world changed.

The sky over New York that morning had been almost impossibly blue and cloudless. Now, black smoke cut across it.
Sheets of paper floated through the air like some grotesque, unwanted ticker-tape parade.

And then came an image none of us was prepared to see.
People were jumping.

Human beings, trapped dozens of stories above the ground, were faced with choices no person should ever have to make.
These were images we could not have imagined in our worst nightmares.

And somehow, the nightmare was still getting worse.

At 8:37 A.M. Central, another plane struck the Pentagon.
At 9:03 A.M. Central, another fell from the sky into an empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

And like some nightmares, we didn't wake up until the damage had already been done. Except when we finally tried to wake ourselves from this one, we realized something even more horrifying:

We hadn't slept through it.
We had lived through it.
We witnessed it.
We heard it.
We watched a perfectly blue September sky turn black with smoke and then ash gray.
We watched people walk away from lower Manhattan covered from head to toe in dust—the business suits they had carefully put on that morning now unrecognizable.

And then we thought about those who never got to walk away.
The ones who would never be found.
The office workers desperately trying to get down the stairs.
The firefighters, police officers and other first responders rushing up those same stairs toward people they had never met.
The heroes who were trained to run toward danger.

And the ordinary passengers aboard Flight 93 who, upon learning what was happening elsewhere, made an extraordinary decision of their own.

“Let's roll.”

By the end of September 11, 2001, 2,977 innocent lives had been taken—from families, from spouses and partners, from friendships, from communities, from states, from countries and from our world.

But something else was taken that day, too.
Our innocence.

Twenty-five years later, may we never forget those we lost.
May we never forget those who ran toward danger when every instinct told others to run away.

May we never forget those whose ordinary Tuesday morning became their final morning.

And perhaps, may we also remember something else from the days that followed.

For a moment, the things that so often divide us seemed so incredibly small.
Political parties didn't define us.
Wealth didn't define us.
ZIP codes didn't define us.
Area codes didn't define us.
Nationality didn't define the compassion extended across borders.

Humanity did.

People stood in blood-donation lines. Strangers embraced strangers. Flags appeared on front porches. Houses of worship opened their doors. Communities gathered. Countries around the world mourned alongside us.

For a brief moment in history, amid unimaginable grief, we remembered how deeply connected we really are.

Twenty-five years later, perhaps one of the greatest ways we can honor the 2,977 souls who never got another tomorrow is to remember not only how they died—

but how, in the days that followed, we chose to live together.

May we never forget.

And may we never stop trying to find our way back to one another.

7:46 A.M. Central Time

Twenty-five years ago, at this exact moment, life here in the Midwest looked like an ordinary Tuesday morning.

Some were getting ready for work. Parents were dropping kids off at school. Teachers were welcoming students into classrooms. Overnight workers were heading home. Coffee was brewing. Radios and televisions were on in the background.

And then came the first reports.

A plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers in New York City.

The images were startling. Smoke poured from the upper floors of the North Tower. There was confusion about what kind of plane it was, how something like this could have happened, and how firefighters could possibly reach the people trapped so high above the city.

But for many of us, that was what we thought we were watching:

A terrible, tragic accident.

We knew there were almost certainly lives lost. We knew people were in danger. We knew something awful had happened.

But we continued getting dressed. Kids settled into their desks. People arrived at work. Radios stayed on. Televisions that normally would have been turned off remained on as we occasionally glanced over for another update.

There was concern. There was confusion. There were questions.

But there wasn't yet an understanding of what this morning would become.

At 7:46 that morning, here in the Midwest, we were simply watching smoke rise from a tower in New York City and wondering how on earth such a terrible accident could have happened.

For the next 17 minutes, we still believed it was one...

What happens next matters.

We've talked about funding cuts that were coming.

Now they're here.
APO has learned that state funding for critical HIV Lost to Care, Retention, and Peer Navigation services is no more, as well as outreach to women & minorities that may qualify for Medicaid—leaving a $262,500 gap.

Somewhere in our community, a person is hearing the words “You tested positive for HIV” and wondering what they're supposed to do next.

Someone else may qualify for Medicaid but doesn't know it—and the outreach funding that helped connect women and minority communities to coverage and healthcare is gone.

Someone already living with HIV is facing a barrier that could pull them out of care.

The funding disappeared with the snap of a finger. The need doesn't—and most importantly, neither do the people depending on that support.

That's what makes this moment so important.

Because behind every funding cut is a person who may have a harder time finding care, getting medication, navigating a complicated healthcare system, or simply knowing where to turn.

No one should face that decision alone.

APO has set a goal of raising $200,000 by the end of this year to help protect access to care and keep removing the barriers standing between people and the healthcare they need.

$10 helps. $25 helps. $100 helps.
And if you can do more, please do.

This isn't simply about replacing lost dollars.
It's about protecting what those dollars made possible.
Healthcare. Access. Support. Dignity. Hope.

What happens next matters.
And what we do next matters, too.
Let's remove barriers, not rebuild them.

Please give directly to APO at www.apo-ozarks.org if you are able.

Funding cuts cannot become care cuts.

❤️ Yes, the APO Open is ridiculous. But what it supports is anything but.

Behind the putters, drinks, crazy golf holes, party buses and laughter is a pretty important reason we do this.

Every team that signs up helps support the work of APO Community Health Center and our commitment to making healthcare more accessible to people throughout our community.

So yes…

Come have a drink. 🍺
Miss a two-foot putt. ⛳
Laugh until your stomach hurts. 😂
Accuse your friends of creative scorekeeping. 👀

But while you’re doing all of that, know that you’re also helping us remove barriers to healthcare—not rebuild them.

That makes every terrible putt worth it. ❤️

📅 Saturday, September 19
👥 Teams of 4

👉 www.givebutter.com/APO2026

Bizarre Bar-The Flea Springfield MO- Hold Fast Brewing- Inner Circle Springfield- J.O.B Public House- Martha's Vineyard- Mix Ultralounge- MudLounge Coffee & Cocktails- Shot Shack

⛳ WAIT…YOU’VE NEVER DONE THE APO OPEN?!

Ohhhh, friend. We need to fix that.

Imagine mini golf.

Now take away the perfectly manicured course.

Replace it with some of your favorite local bars.

Add drinks, friends, party buses, ridiculous homemade golf holes, terrible putting, laughter, and hundreds of people having one heck of an afternoon.

THAT is the APO Open Mini-Golf Pub Crawl. 🍻⛳

And the best part? All this ridiculousness actually does some serious good by supporting the work of APO Community Health Center.

📅 Saturday, September 19
👥 Teams of 4
🐦 Early Bird registration is available NOW!

👉 www.givebutter.com/APO2026

Come for the putts. Stay for the drinks. Leave knowing you helped your community. ❤️

Shot Shack- MudLounge Coffee & Cocktails- Mix Ultralounge- Martha's Vineyard- J.O.B Public House- Inner Circle Springfield- Hold Fast Brewing- The Flea Springfield MO- Bizarre Bar

📱 Go ahead. Send this to the group chat.

You know the one.

The group that’s always saying, “We need to do something soon!” and then proceeds to do absolutely NOTHING about it. 😂

Well…here you go.

⛳ Mini golf
🍻 Pub crawl
🚌 Party buses
😂 Questionable scorekeeping
🏆 Bragging rights
❤️ Supporting APO Community Health Center

The APO Open is Saturday, September 19, and all you need is a team of FOUR.

Now tag your people, make someone take responsibility for actually registering the team, and LET’S GO.

👉 www.givebutter.com/APO2026

Because “we should totally do that” is NOT a registration. 😏

Bizarre Bar- The Flea Springfield MO- Hold Fast Brewing- Inner Circle Springfield- J.O.B Public House- Martha's Vineyard- Mix Ultralounge- MudLounge Coffee & Cocktails- Shot Shack

🎉🎂 SOME PEOPLE HAVE BIRTHDAYS. JONATHAN JOHNSON HAS AN EVENT. 🎂🎉

And really… would we expect anything less?

Today we get to celebrate one of the most colorful, compassionate, talented, fiercely loyal and genuinely kindest humans we know—our very own APO Community Health Center Board Member, Jonathan Johnson! ❤️

Jonathan is one of those rare people who simply cannot blend into the background. Sometimes that’s because of an outfit that deserves its own ZIP code. Sometimes it’s because he has something to say and, trust us, you’re going to hear it. 😂 But most often, it’s because Jonathan has a heart that refuses to let him stand quietly by when someone needs help, encouragement, protection, a friend—or someone willing to speak up on their behalf.

He creates beautiful things with fabric, thread and a sewing machine, but some of the most beautiful things Jonathan creates have nothing to do with sewing. He creates belonging. He creates laughter. He creates spaces where people can show up exactly as they are and know they have someone in their corner.

Since joining our Board of Directors in 2016, Jonathan has brought all of that—and so much more—to APO. He loves this organization fiercely because he loves the people we serve fiercely. He challenges us, cheers for us, volunteers beside us, advocates for our clients and never lets us forget that compassion isn’t something you simply talk about. You live it.

And Jonathan lives it BIG.

Big personality.
Big laugh.
Big opinions. 😉
Big talent.
Big love.

And underneath every fabulous stitch, every unforgettable outfit, every volunteer hour and every passionately delivered opinion is one extraordinarily tender heart.

Jonathan, APO is better because you are part of it, and our community is brighter because you are in it.

So today, we hope your birthday is just like you: bold, colorful, slightly over-the-top, filled with laughter and absolutely impossible to ignore. 🎈✨

Happy Birthday, Jonathan! We love you BIG! ❤️🎂

Now everybody else—make some noise in the comments and help us celebrate this wonderfully infamous human! 🎉🥳