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Long Island,

New York

longislandksk@gmail.com

SUMMER 2023

Celebrating its 10th summer, the Long Island Chapter of Kids Serving Kids continues to thrive! Savana Connolly has kept the tennis program at the Equal Opportunities Council (formally known as the Equal Opportunities Center) going since it was passed down to her in 2022. After volunteering as a counselor herself for two years beginning in 2020, she advanced to the role of Director. She has recruited and trained 14 new High School volunteers over the course of two years. These volunteers have assisted her in teaching the game of tennis to campers, ages 6 to 13. One of these volunteers is her brother, Liam Connolly. As Savana will be graduating High School in June of 2024, she will be handing down the role of Program Director onto her brother, Liam Connolly, where she is confident he will continue to develop this extraordinary program.

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2020 UPDATE: PUSHING FORWARD!

The Kids Serving Kids Long Island Chapter, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, completed yet another successful summer season of clinics out of its local Equal Opportunities Center in Great Neck, New York. Over the past several seasons, the Long Island Chapter has seen a consistent wave of donations and continued support in its local community, as well as a continued surge of participants each summer. While the pandemic did present some significant challenges, the Long Island Chapter stuck to its roots and pushed forth its goal of giving back to the community in a fun and active way. The program has a profound impact on the lives of the kids and their families and has undoubtedly expanded the greater tennis community. Tennis is a sport that sticks with people for life, and these kids have been given the incredible opportunity to strengthen that passion and see where it takes them in the future.

— KSK Long Island Chapter

2019 UPDATE: 6 YEARS STRONG!

The Long Island Chapter of Kids Serving Kids is now 6 years strong! Since its founding in 2014 by Matthew Holweger, the chapter has been providing tennis clinic which benefits the underserved at the Manhasset/Great Neck EOC summer camp.

Beginning in the summer of 2016, the EOC tennis clinics had new face in the leadership of its operation. Brett Weisberg, one of the original founding members of the Long Island Chapter of KSK, took the reins from Holweger and began to take charge of the daily operations of not only the summer clinic, but all of the factors that go into running the chapter of Kids Serving Kids. For three summers, Brett and his new team of volunteers continued to successfully run an enjoyable and informative clinic for the children of the EOC.

Now that Brett has moved on to college, the torch of the lead of operations has now passed to Jillian Holweger and Ryan Weisberg (Matt's younger sister and Brett's younger brother, respectively). These two tennis enthusiasts have now taken charge and will once again continue to work at providing a wonderful outlet of fun and exercise for the children of the EOC. As current juniors at Manhasset High School, Ryan and Jillian have been volunteering for the clinic for the last few years and are determined to continue and expand the efforts of the Long Island chapter of KSK that were set by their older siblings. The two will be the directors of the clinic and long Island KSK through the summer of 2020, when they will hand off leadership to a new pair of volunteers.

As part of their initiative, they are planning on holding another collection of gently used tennis rackets and donating that equipment to the King's County Tennis League (KCTL) in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Founded in 2010 by Michael McCasland, the KCTL has been providing the experience of tennis to hundreds of children in need living in housing projects in the Bed-Stuy area. This program served as the inspiration for Matt Holweger to start the Long Island chapter of KSK as well as the clinic at the EOC. The mission of KCTL is to not only teach children the basic athletic skills of the sport, but to hopefully use the off-court skills of tennis as an instrument for positive youth development in the Brooklyn area; which is exactly what the Long Island KSK volunteers at the EOC have tried to achieve these last several years for the children of the EOC summer tennis camp.