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Why a Non profit Community Tennis Program?
For our non profit, tennis itself is prevention, when kids come to play tennis, they have to learn social skills to trust a mentor and one another, to become comfortable with people from different backgrounds and to be proud of who they are.
Our non profit tennis organization was started in 1989. Myself, with the help of another area tennis player; Anne Marie Barnes, founded "Say Yes To Tennis/Say No To Drugs", (SYTT) as a community tennis association. We started with two young boys and have grown to serve 1400 students per year. Anne Marie and I had a similar vision- to address the lack of minority representation in tennis and to help build legitimate inroads into the sport.
Growing up in an impoverished neighborhood I knew first hand the needs of the "high risk" families. It became very apparent that tennis offered much more to minorities than physical fitness and a lifetime of athletic enjoyment. SYTT could provide its participants not only an opportunity to escape an environment laced with drugs, violence, and hopelessness but also an opportunity to pursue higher education with a means of financing their pursuits.
As you will see our non profit is an innovative program committed to helping young people lead a lifestyle that allows them to grow into productive citizens with a heart and mind to serve the community. Tennis itself is prevention, when kids come to play tennis, they have to learn social skills to trust one another, to become comfortable with people from different backgrounds and to be proud of who they are.
SYTT has expanded prevention to include education on the dangers of drug use, including the use of alcohol and nicotine. We also teach the students to develop confidence by helping them to build a positive self-concept. This is accomplished by teaching them such concepts as, dealing with anger effectively,maintaining a positive attitude, and finding a purpose and direction for their life. We provide this segment in conjunction with our nonprofit tennis programs. If youth don't come to prevention they don't get the privilege of playing tennis. It works, as SYTT has seen many kids from low-income levels choose to stay away from the dangers of drug use by going on to work and/ or attend college.
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