DEXTER – This Saturday, Feb. 7, the Ice Bowl returns.
No, not another NFC Championship between the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys played in -13-degree weather.
The Eugene Disc Golf Club (EDGC) is hosting its 15th annual Ice Bowl at Dexter Park Disc Golf Course, with proceeds benefiting Food for Lane County (FFLC). The event has raised more than $105,000 and thousands of pounds of non-perishable food items the past 14 years.
The project began in 2008, when EDGC member Jim Johnson started a “Food Toss” at the disc golf course at Dexter State Park. From 2008-11, Johnson ran that event, which collected non-perishable foods and tax-deductible cash contributions that went to FFLC. In 2012, the event was formalized under the Ice Bowl umbrella.
The Ice Bowl has been a yearly tradition around the globe since 1987, and has been raising money and food since 1996. The Foundation has raised over $7 million dollars and collected north of one million pounds of food, according to their website.
As disc golf grows in popularity, so does its potential for charitable impact. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the sport exploded as an outdoor activity. The sport has grown by 76% in the past five years and there are 16,267 courses worldwide, according to UDisc’s Disc Golf Growth Report released in early 2025.
“Disc golf is super inclusive and super accessible. A 6-year old can throw a frisbee, an 86-year-old can throw a frisbee. It only takes one disc to get started,” tournament director Adam Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez estimates that the EDGC has 150-200 active members, and estimates there have been over a thousand members since the club was started in 1988.
Lane County was one of the earliest areas to get hooked on disc golf. Eugene Fackler has been a member since 1998, and remembers the countrywide renown of the Dexter course early on.
Fackler said one of the Dexter State Park rangers was at a conference in Florida just months after the course had been built. The ranger heard a group of men talking about disc golf, so he went over and told them about the course in Dexter. The men had recently gone on a disc golf trip, and stopped at Dexter to play the course, so it was a destination for the disc golf community early on.
Additionally, the Stewart Pond Disc Golf Course was the first 18-hole course in the continental United States to be put on Bureau of Land Management land, Fackler said.
You don’t have to be an EDGC member to play Saturday’s event and there are over 40 different divisions. There are pro divisions separated by age group from 40+ to 80+, divisions for any age group at multiple skill levels, and junior divisions for younger disc throwers all the way down to 12 and under.
The event doesn’t take itself too seriously, with awards for Most Fun, Most Wimpy, and Most Whiny nominated by fellow players and given out at the post-event party at Tita’s Tropical Grill in Pleasant Hill. There is also a 50/50 raffle with 50% of the pot going to FFLC and the winner receiving the other half.
Thanks to the efforts of EDGC, the Ice Bowl has become one of FFLC’s biggest community-driven fundraisers. The donations FFLC has received from the Ice Bowl have helped the food bank supply more than 200,000 meals over the past 14 years.
In the past few years, anonymous donors have obtained “matching grants” to double the amount of money raised for FFLC, Fackler said. This year’s goal is $7,500.
An outside sporting event in February in Lane County may seem crazy, but that’s where it gets its name. The donations also come at a key time for FFLC.
“The Ice Bowl is really great this time of year too, because we’ve just wrapped up the holiday season, which was a huge push of the community giving. It slows down a little bit right after the holidays. So when the Ice Bowl happens is amazing timing,” said Caitlin Caldwell, who has been the Community Giving Coordinator at FFLC for the past two Ice Bowls.
