The Donkor Tennis and education Foundation has been busy this summer with clinics, construction and court building!!!
Firstly the clay courts, that have been a work in progress for a while now, have finally received their top coat of sand and this week we will be hiring machines to pound and flatten the clay so the courts will be ready to play on. This will mean all four courts are officially complete and ready for our students to start playing on.
The locker rooms are now near completion, with just the roof needed to be finished. Thanks to all the hard working men that have completed the majority of work with just their bare hands for tools!!!
We are pleased to welcome Adam Tanagidah to our team. Adam travelled to Ghana in May to assume the role of site manager for our tennis center. Adam is now helping to manage the overall construction of the courts and locker rooms as well as working with local businesses on sponsorship and support. Adam is also a qualified tennis coach and will be taking the Foundation into schools in the near future.
Our first college placement student has successfully begun school at New Mexico Military School. Herman Abban flew to the USA from Ghana in August and has settled in to his new role as a college student. Herman sent us a letter thanking the Foundation for third help in “making his dream come true”. We wish Herman all the best with his future and will be following his progress with his tennis and education.
Six large boxes of donation equipment, rackets and shoes were packed and shipped to Ghana ready to give to the children in Ghana. Over 70 rackets, clothing, tennis balls and around 80 pairs of tennis shoes were among the generous donations given by friends, family and tennis clubs. Thank you to everyone who donated!!!
Isaac, along with board members Scott triebly, Charl Wolmarans, Bere White and junior advisory board member, Jack Jones, put on two clinics over the summer in Zimbabwe. The clinics were a huge success with around 70 children getting the chance to play tennis and have fun with our coaches. Thanks to all the teachers and staff at Triangle and Napa Valley School. The Foundation is in talks with Triangle school to sponsor a couple of their students to play tournaments and improve their tennis coaching opportunities. For around $200, these students will get the chance to travel and compete in tournaments that would otherwise not be available to them.
We have started our local tennis lessons back up again after summer break in Florida and the first day was a huge success with over 20 children participating in the classes. It was great to see our old students coming back eager to learn again and also to see many new faces of children picking up a racket for the first time!!
Isaac got the chance to make a flying visit to Ghana this summer. He got the chance to view our tennis center and to put into place preparations for Octobers clinics. Along with Adam and Herman, Isaac was interviewed by Metro TV, talking about the Foundations plans for the future and our excitement about this year’s clinics being run on our own courts for the first time.
The foundation would like to say a huge thank you to junior board members Jack Jones, majia-Johnson and their tennis team mates at Brunswick High school for collecting tennis rackets, shoes, clothing and tennis bags for us. Also thanks to Proform Tennis Academy for their continued support through donation collections.
Our October clinics are fast approaching and Isaac will be making his annual trip to Ghana to run clinics in Accra, Kumasi, Tacoradi and for the first time our own courts in Aye-Mensah, near Aburi Gardens. This is something the foundation has been aiming towards for some time and to finally be able to have children playing on the courts we have built is amazing.
We could not do all this without the support of our donors, friends and family so thank you …our dream of completing our tennis center is so close and it’s because of the generosity of all of you that this is possible. Thank you.