Story by Rachel Morley
In 2018, a great thing happened to tennis in Colorado. Thanks to a generous donation to the Colorado Youth Tennis Foundation, the fundraising arm of USTA Colorado, SERVES officially launched and helped expand tennis to youth who showed a passion for the sport but didn’t have the resources available for them to play. SERVES is an acronym for Success, Education, Respect, Values, Excellence and Self-Confidence, which demonstrates the breadth of the program and its goal to not only bring tennis, but also life skills and leadership, to those who participate.
SERVES is a partnership program between the CYTF and USTA Colorado. In all, three providers have been selected as SERVES satellite providers and both the CYTF and USTA Colorado provide significant dollars and resources to help fund program operations. The three programs are SERVES at the Denver Tennis Park, Colorado Springs SERVES and Steamboat SERVES – each of which has developed successful programs that best service their individual communities. We will profile each program over the coming months, highlighting their challenges and successes and learning more about the participants and what the program has meant to them.
Let’s get started hearing about SERVES at the Denver Tennis Park.
The Denver Tennis Park (DTP) was chosen to launch a SERVES program in 2019. The program initially had about 30 kids but, like so many programs, it was impacted by COVID. Fortunately, tennis was an activity that people could still be involved in with low contact, so DTP ran two sessions during the second half of 2020.
Early in 2021, Gabriel Guillaume, DTP President, and his team analyzed the previous two years and made some critical changes to the program in order to increase participation, most notably, taking it out into communities beyond the DTP facility and making it a “no-cost” program, although donations were accepted from those who could afford to do so. Over the course of 2021, SERVES ran for 48 Saturdays at DTP, offered a program in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood, and reached 72 unique participants. The steady growth of the program was encouraging to the DTP staff and sparked them to want to do more.
Sonia Schwartz, Community Outreach Manager, says, “DTP believes in community, but we knew that we needed to build trust and relationships within communities for the programs to be successful. We take our high-quality program in to under-served communities at no cost to them. We explain that this is not about tennis, but about giving kids another opportunity to stay active, be involved in a positive activity, and gain important life skills. We put our plan in to action and stick around. It’s a process and takes time, but the results are so worth it.” With the success of the in-community program at Montbello, DTP knew they would continue being a part of that community as well as move forward with their goal of bringing tennis into the Southwest Denver region, which happened in 2022 with the launch of a program at Lincoln High School.
Guillaume is extremely proud of the community SERVES program and the impact it has had. He says, “Last summer we had more than 200 kids involved which is amazing!” He praises Schwartz’s ability to engage with those in the various communities that DTP SERVES is trying to reach. “Sonia is rare in that she relishes the ability to build relationships with the families. She connects with the parents, partners, and even strangers to ensure our program is focused on community needs and culture. She’s built a tennis family in both Montbello and Southwest Denver. We now have a community advisory council made up of leaders from both communities informing our strategies at nearly every level.”
Schwartz has put her heart and soul into building these community relationships and loves every minute of it. “I am so lucky to get to be on the sidelines with the families. Many choose to stay while the kids are on the court. Over the course of the 4 – 5 week-long sessions, I introduce myself to each family and get to know them and explain our mission and vision to them. I ask for their input on things we can do better and some of our improvements have been a result of the community feedback. We identify the kids that fall in love with our sport and want to go further in it. Then we are able to pipeline them to DTP and other available programming” she says.
The partners that Schwartz speaks of range from USTA Colorado and the Colorado Youth Tennis Foundation who also provide funding for scholarships for kids to participate in the program, to community-based organizations such as Struggle of Love Foundation, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Colorado, KTone Foundation, and Colorado Lions Youth Organization who have provided support ranging from outreach to financial donations. Guillaume says of these groups, “We have seen them embracing the SERVES program and what it means to the families they support.”
Guillaume stresses that “The program creates a diverse environment for all who play in it – racially, economically, culturally, geographically, and of tennis capacity. This fosters an inclusive culture which allows friendships and family relationships to form. It supports an open and accessible culture for tennis, something that pushes back against the stigma that tennis isn’t for everyone. The curriculum brings more than tennis. It supports leadership, mental toughness, physical strength, and problem solving. It exemplifies our commitment to youth development through tennis.”
While Schwartz builds relationship and trust off the court, DTP’s tennis instruction team develops confidence and love of game on the court. Led by Chris Croxton and Mike Phillips, the more than 20 instructors are all committed to advancing overall development through access to tennis. There is a strict curriculum, but each instructor brings their own style and personality to the program which is a great benefit due to the diversity of race, gender, experience, age and communication style of the participants. Croxton points out, “We have put a lot of energy in to developing and customizing the SERVES program lesson plan. However, we want our instructors to use their individual skills and abilities to connect with the kids to develop an effective program with lasting relationships. That’s the key to sustainability at DTP and in the communities where we are bringing tennis to.”
These concepts of friendship and leadership and confidence are clearly seen in how SERVES has affected some of the participants in DTP’s program. In 2021, Dr. Darlene Sampson signed her 7-year old granddaughter, Lyric, up for SERVES after seeing a flyer on the internet. She says, “Lyric initially didn’t want to do it because she didn’t want to run back and forth like that to get the ball.” They look back on that and laugh now as Lyric is already excited to start again this summer. Sampson says “Lyric is very sociable, so she views tennis as a time to learn, play, and spend time with friends she has made through the sport. The way in which SERVES teaches tennis provides a fun and engaging way to learn the fundamentals. The children have games, engage in movement, and work in large and small groups to enhance relationships.”
Miguel Ferrero’s 7-year old son got involved in the program in 2022 and says that, besides the friends he has made that he looks forward to seeing every week, it has “helped him with discipline at home. He is responsible for preparing everything he needs for practice the night before.”
Another thing that Guillaume and Schwartz are deeply committed to is peer mentorship. Just one example is 11-year old Thalia Wilkins who joined the program in 2020 and is an advanced scholarship recipient, which allows her access to lessons, equipment, tournament entry fees and court time. She started the program at the most basic level of tennis and now competes in tournaments and has developed a relationship with the University of Denver women’s team coach. Guillaume says, “Thalia’s game, confidence and leadership have exploded in the past year, and she has taken on the role of being a mentor to the younger kids in the program.”
With such positive reception from participants, it’s no surprise that DTP’s SERVES program has had such great success, including a 42% increase in participation in fall 2022 over spring 2022 and reaching about 250 unduplicated youth in 2022.
But that doesn’t mean that 2023 won’t be without improvements. DTP is in the process of training parents to assist with on-court coaching. This will allow for a greater coach to student ratio as well as provide more opportunities for kids to play with these parents outside of the program. They also hope to establish more funding to increase their scholarship number from 44 to 60. Guillaume says, “One way to ensure youth who can’t yet get a scholarship is to enroll them in our SERVES program which will be done with more intention this year.”
DTP also plans to grow the program in different communities as long as they have access to courts. The passion and enthusiasm that Guillaume, Schwartz and the entire DTP SERVES coaching staff has for the kids is undeniable. Schwartz says, “I love the kids; every single one of them. They are spunky, honest and so much fun. They come from a variety of backgrounds and the one thing that stands out is their appreciation. They are grateful and the ones that really fall in love with tennis (and many have) make sure they express it to their families and their coaches and to me. The kids are the focus.”
Watch USTA Colorado SERVES at the Denver Tennis Park in action.