Nucor Charity Pickleball Tournament Targets Florence Beautification and Youth Hunger Relief

Nucor Vulcraft and the Florence Pickleball Club brought 106 registered players to Timrod Park last weekend for the inaugural Nucor Charity Pickleball Tournament, a three-day event that channeled entry fees toward two Florence-area causes: Keep Florence Beautiful and Help4Kids.

The tournament ran March 20 through 22 at Timrod Park on 400 Timrod Park Drive in Florence, SC, with competition structured across three days. Friday's 6 PM session covered Men's and Women's Singles. Saturday morning brought Men's and Women's Doubles, and Sunday wrapped up with Mixed Doubles. Divisions spanned skill ratings from 2.0 through 4.5-plus under the Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating system, with age brackets split between Open and 65-plus for beginner through recreational levels. Start times were staggered by 15 minutes between divisions, and the official ball throughout was the Franklin X-40.

Entry fees were set at $40 for Florence Pickleball Club members and $50 for non-members, with an additional $10 per extra bracket entered. The event flyer confirmed that each per-person fee included a tournament t-shirt. Sponsorship inquiries and additional sign-up coordination were handled through Amy Baker, Regional Sales Manager at Nucor Vulcraft, reachable at abaker@vulcraft-sc.com or 843.664.2232.

Where exactly the collected entry fees land involves some nuance. Keep Florence Beautiful, Help4Kids, and the City of Florence Parks, Recreation and Sports Tourism department all promoted the event as benefiting Keep Florence Beautiful and Help4Kids directly. The Global Pickleball Network's event listing, however, stated that "all entry fees donated to Nucor Charity Network." Whether the Nucor Charity Network serves as an intermediary that then distributes funds to the two local organizations was not clarified in available materials from any of the parties involved.

Keep Florence Beautiful described the stakes plainly in a March 9 Facebook post: the tournament would "benefit Keep Florence Beautiful and Help4Kids, helping fund programs that support our community, families, and local beautification efforts." Help4Kids focuses on addressing youth hunger in the Florence area, making the pairing a straightforward two-pronged community investment, whatever the precise routing of the proceeds.

Registration closed sometime before the tournament opened, with the official event flyer listing March 18, 2026 as the player registration cutoff date. The Global Pickleball Network's tournament page recorded registration as closed on March 17 at 11:45 PM, and an earlier GPN notice had listed March 15 as the deadline. The City of Florence Parks department posted a reminder that "registration closes Tuesday," consistent with a March 17 cutoff given the post's timing. The 106-player count recorded on the GPN tournament page represents the field that ultimately competed across Singles, Doubles, and Mixed Doubles.