Summer is here and for us in the desert it will be 100+ so tennis is early in the morning. Everybody busy with graduation but we are continuing our La Quinta Fitz Burns Park tennis clinics to the end of June and working on extending thru July. We are coming to the end of our Palm Springs Boys & Girls Club tennis as they close for their summer camps!
SUMMER TENNIS CAMP AT INDIAN RIDGE C.C.
If you would like to sponsor a kid for the summer tennis clinics and camps there is a PayPal set up on the lovelovetennisfoundation.com website. Any amount is welcome and appreciated.
We will be working with Rhenn Ramirez at Indian Ridge CC with his Junior Summer Tennis Camp Program. You can go to my website (lovelovetennisfoundation.com) or contact Rhenn at: 760 895-8786 or email
Ramtennisnpickle@gmail.com for full schedule.
ST. THOMAS:
It was a long journey to St. Thomas from Palm Desert, California. From land to shinning sea almost 24 hrs from my arrival and a long time to sit, sleep & read my book. Destination a caucaphony of island sounds and the rythym of their life style….soothing like a glass of passion fruit mixed with their sweet rum concoction I drank upon my arrival. There was John Wilkins, my host who’m I not met until today. Spoken, text, emailed until our final arrival St Thomas. I also found out he was a terrific Chef and entrepreneur.
John was born in St. Thomas, played on tour in the 1980s and is living in Miami with 2 lovely boys Nicholas & William..19 & 20! His wife is Salvadorian where my family is from. Great mixture of cultures that coexist well! There’s plenty of Spanish spoken here as other islands have lots of Spanish influence.
I thought I was going to sink the plane when I put my 2nd “Big Bag” on the scale. It was filled with kids rackets, t-shirts, clothes and other goodies for the kids who were coming to the 3 day Tennis Festival at the Sub Base Tennis Center. The weather was hot and humid so the beach that sat outside of my hotel window was very inviting, especially after our long day of tennis clinics. The kids were eager and hungry to learn. As hot as it was they didn’t want to stop. They finally stopped when we announced there was ice cream on the menu. We also had a lot of adults who joined in to play and had a great time.
On my previous visit on the cruise in January I met several older guys who had been playing and helping the kids as they’d been helped when they were younger. It was great to see how much they cared about tennis and how proud they were to be able to enjoy such a privilege. I felt my mission was accomplished. I am a motivator and the kids and people in St Thomas were motivated to do more…sometimes it is not enough and there are many obstacles in the way that are difficult to remove and go beyond. I know the seed has been planted not by me, I helped but it’s the others like John Wilkins, his company SportSpot & Storm Wilkins Foundation, Garvey Thomas, Irene Walker with Meta and the many others who have helped make the dream of tennis in St. Thomas come true. The kids are hungry to learn, we just need to feed them.
Until the next trip I’ll be looking for a long book to go with the long flight!
Have a great summer! I know I will because I am going to Wimbledon and although I no longer play there is nothing like Wimbledon. It is the Cathedral of Tennis!! I will hit with my buddies Billie Jean and Ilana in the indoor courts. Lucky me that I still can!