02/17/2026
For public review to clear up Tri-County Optimist clubs non profit status. Here is the back story and maybe you’ve heard people talking around town. A few months back our club was brought up at a Village of pulaski board meeting by a board member saying that we were not a valid non profit club. We were not asked to attend this meeting or asked to provide documentation. We heard about this publicly announced speculation after the meeting and we were confused as to why some members of the village board would be questioning this. It turns out after further investigation it was a discussion about our anticipated application for a beer license and park rental for our Booyah bash & car show in September.
Some back story on that event. This event was previously just a car show for many years and a one day event, four years ago our club was asked to make the one day event into a two day festival to ultimately draw people from outside of the village and promote our town. We took on the big challenge that was requested of our club to ultimately better Pulaski.
Back to the question of non profit status… we submitted our park rental & beer license applications and attended the Feb board meeting where they would be brought to be voted on. At this meeting the applications were asked to be approved and Stephanie Rodgers stated to the board she had questions of the legitimacy of our club. Stating she looked our club up and we were not a 501c3. To which we replied she was correct. Our club has always been affiliated through Optimist International since its inception on 9/9/1976. We were then asked to get a letter of good standing with Optimist International, which we have done and are also providing a copy here for public review.
Our club appreciates the village boards due diligence in making sure rentals are provided to valid entities but it saddens us that they would publicly make claims without proper proof and simply asking our board to provide such proof vs making untrue statements at a board meeting we were not present at. We hope this clears up any questions and we always welcome any communication our clubs email is [email protected]
