ABOUT WILL
I fell in love with tennis when I was 5 years old. I am a senior at Lincoln-Sudbury High School where I play on the varsity tennis team. In the summer, I enjoy fishing and golfing and am also a tennis instructor at the Greenwood Club in Sudbury where I help kids and adults improve their game in a fun and relaxed environment. By founding Kids Serving Kids Boston, it gives me another opportunity to work with kids and teach them how to play the great game and the many life lessons involved including self-confidence and mental toughness. Giving back to my community is something I deeply care about, especially helping people who are less fortunate than me.
— Will Tarini, founder of KSK Boston
ABOUT KIDS SERVING KIDS BOSTON
For the past two summers, the Lincoln-Sudbury tennis team and I have brought the joy of tennis to about 100 undeserved kids that participated in the Holy Family Summer Camp in Dorchester. Catholic parishes in Dorchester have partnered with a local parish in Sudbury, where I live, called Our Lady of Fatima. This bond helps the parishes in Boston in many ways, including the organization of the Holy Family Summer Camp, created by John Ollquist nearly 20 years ago. The Holy Family Summer Camp serves about 100 kids and participates in many activities in Boston including going to the aquarium and taking boat rides in the Boston Harbor. With John's help nearly two years ago, I introduced tennis clinics for the kids at camp! I wanted to do this because I wanted to expose these kids to a new, great game they may have never considered playing due to financial, economic, or cultural barriers. With the help of my teammates from the Lincoln-Sudbury tennis team, we put on a total of 5 clinics.
2016 SUMMER CAMP
The summer of 2016 was another great year for Kids Serving Kids Boston! We started off the year with USTA donating a $1,000 equipment grant to KSK Boston that included 36 brand new Babolat rackets and over 150 new tennis balls! In addition, KSK Boston collected over 120 rackets and raised $2,500. This summer, the LS tennis team and I put on 5 clinics for the Holy Family Summer Camp, spreading the joy of tennis to over 100 kids! It was greaet to see a number of familiar faces and meet new kids as well. We conducted the clinics at the Mary Ellen McCormick tennis courts this year since the tennis courts at BC High were under construction and it worked out great!
At the end of the clinic, each kid received a customized blue Kids Serving Kids Boston drawstring bag! In addition, they got a FrogTog to keep them cool in the summer and a can of tennis balls so they could continue to play tennis! We also received publicity from the USTA! Follow the links to find out more:
Read the USTA's article about Will and the KSK Boston Clinics:
https://www.usta.com/en/home/stay-current/newengland/Kidshelpingkidsthroughtennis.html
As of March 2016, Will applied for and received a grant from the USTA!
Kids Serving Kids Boston added 36 brand new Babolat kids rackets and 2 buckets of red/orange tennis balls! Will is very appreciative of USTA for approving his grant request because it tremendously helps his fundraising efforts for this summer's tennis clinics!
2015 UPDATES
During the months of May and June, 2015, my teammates and I from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School collected over 115 gently used rackets and received over $2,500 in financial contributions. In addition, I reserved the Boston College High School courts in Dorchester for the summer clinics starting July 10th, with the help of John Ollquist, a member of my church who generously devoted his time to help me with this project. Update as of September 25, 2015: With the money I have raised over the past few months, I was able to buy over 40 gently used kids rackets for a great price from the LS Boosters Sale in Sudbury! Thank you so much for your generosity!
This summer, the Lincoln-Sudbury tennis team and I brought the joy of tennis to about 100 underserved kids that participated in the Holy Family Summer Camp in Dorchester. Catholic Parishes in Dorchester have partnered with a local parish in Sudbury where I live called Our Lady of Fatima. This bond helps the parishes in Boston in many ways, including the organization of the Holy Family Summer Camp, created by John Ollquist nearly 20 years ago. The Holy Family Summer Camp serves about 100 kids and does many activities throughout the week ranging from going to the aquarium to taking boat rides in the Boston Harbor.
This summer, with John's help, I introduced tennis clinics for the kids at the camp! I wanted to do this because I wanted these kids to experience a game we take for granted and also wanted them to have fun learning a new game they may not have considered playing. With the help of my teammates from the Lincoln-Sudbury tennis team, we put a total of 5 clinics. The first one was on Friday, July 10th and ran every Friday until Thursday, August 6th from 10-2 at the Boston College High School courts. We had a morning session of 10-12 kids from 10:00 - 11:30 and then an afternoon session of 10-12 kids from 12:30 to 2:00. Overall I think this years summer tennis clinics were a huge success and the kids had a blast! Some kids were a little unsure about tennis at first because they thought it would be boring, but ended up having a great time and walked out with smiles on their faces. Not only did we put on a successful clinics for the kids, we also received great press coverage about Kids Serving Kids in the newspapers!! One is from the local Dorchester paper and the other was featured in my local paper in Sudbury and in the Metrowest Daily News.
See more coverage of Will's efforts here:
http://www.dotnews.com/2015/lincoln-sudbury-teens-offer-tennis-clinic-part-holy-family-camp
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/article/20150807/SPORTS/150807271
Will presents a camper with a custom Kids Serving Kids bag, convenient for holding a tennis racket, and tennis balls! His reaction is priceless :-)