Funded Jul 28, 2009The first day that I told the students we were going to play tennis, there were about thirteen kids after school who wanted to play. We drew names out of a hat for rackets. Even after this happened, one more student came along "just two watch" even though he had no racket. My students were that excited about the opportunity to play that they were willing to come along, even if they had nothing to play with and had to share. When we got to the courts, there were people playing on both. So we waited inside our school fence on our blacktop. The kids hit volleys back and forth to each other over a line on the ground. At this point, I was feeling terrible. We had more kids than rackets and kids were chasing balls at every other hit because we had no courts. Finally, an opening occurred at the courts and we seized the opportunity. The kids, eight boys and one girl began hitting the balls back and forth over the net. We played a game called "King of the Court", which was more like "Queen of the Court" because the one girl was the only player who could consistently hit the ball back over the net. After only about thirty minutes of tennis and about seven balls over the fence, we had to go back into school for homework time. I thought the kids would be disappointed because of the early problems before we even had a court and because they were truly struggling on the court. I could not have been more wrong.
The kids loved it. One kid enjoyed it so much, he told his grandma and she was able to reserve the courts for us every Thursday for an hour and a half. The next week, we were drawing names out of a hat again. After about seven times playing, the kids are getting much better. About twelve different students have had an opportunity to come and play, all of whom are getting much better. We only hit one or two balls a day over the fence.
Thank you so much for your donation and support which has had a profound effect on many of these young kids. This is an opportunity some of my students never would have received as evidenced by my student who came in with his own "tennis racket", which turned out to be one for racquetball. Another student is doing much better in school now, because I was able to use tennis as leverage for him to get homework done. Other kids are just having a lot of fun. I am too. Thank you.
Unfortunately, it's getting colder now and we are going to stop playing for the winter. I am looking forward to getting on the court one or two more times before we have to put tennis into hibernation mode until the spring. Thank you so much. I really hope you continue supporting public education, because it really makes a huge difference. Thanks again.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Fox
