Tennis & Tutoring (TnT)
|
>View discussions about this entry Country: United States
Organization: MaliVai Washington Kids Foundation
Sport - Tennis
Year the initative began (yyyy) - 1999
Project URL: http://www.malwashington.com
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? - MWKF develops champions in classrooms, on tennis courts and throughout communities by using the discipline and fun of tennis.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? - Our founder is a former Wimbledon finalist and top 20 professional player. We have a comprehensive youth development program that is focused on tennis but offers much more than tennis: homework assistance, life skills and character development classes, community service opportunities and leadership opportunities. The program is comprehensive serving youth from aged 6-18 with monitoring through college. Scholarships are available for college education as well as work/study opportunities. Each child in the program has a caring mentor who meets with them weekly. Additionally, there are plenty of recreational and competitive opportunities available in tennis. Other sports and fitness activities are also provided to expose children to a variety of sports, although all children participate in tennis activities at least twice a week.
What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change? - The barriers of poverty, lack of education and the belief that life can be different. Our goal is to serve hope and change lives. We do not provide hospice care, but offer the tools necessary for young people to change their lives--through responsible decisions and education. Tennis--and the opportunities it provides--are rewards for focusing on education and making responsible decisions.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? - Our program requires committment--on behalf of the staff, our board and volunteers, our children and their parents. A committment to attend daily is required and responsible, positive behavior is a must to remain in the program. Children understand boundaries and what is expected of them. For those that focus on meeting the goals of responsible behavior and a focus on education, rewards are plenty--extra playing time, tournaments and matches, field trips and other activities. We have a professional full and part time staff and offer ongoing training. We are constantly looking for innovative ways to address the issues and needs of our youth and the community in which they live.
How do you plan to grow your innovation? - We are in the midst of construction of a $3.5 million Youth Tennis & Education Complex which includes nine new tennis courts and a 9500 square food academic building. The building is completely funded by private dollars and will open its doors in the spring of 2008. This new facility will allow us to eventually double the number of youth we serve and will allow us to offer tennis and other activities to the community at large as well. In addition, it will allow us to expose the needs and challenges of this underserved community to the greater community by hosting community wide events such as High School District Tennis Tournaments and Junior Grand Prix Tennis Tournaments at our location.
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. - We hope to improve the lives of those we serve by supporting educational development and responsible behavior as modeled on the tennis court.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries? - Our beneficiaries are the youth of the community aged 6-18, their families and the community at large. Our involvement in the lifes of young people have had documented outcomes: our youth are promoted to the next grade at a rate higher than their peers, 100% of our program youth graduate from high school, none of our youth have experienced teen parenthood; our youth miss school less frequently than their peers. Our goal is for our youth to pursue secondary education and to break the cycle of poverty that
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact? - The primary barriers are identification of funding, city restrictions and the ability to identify strong support staff.
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? - This initiative has been financed with funds from government, tennis organizations, special event fundraisers, individual donations, corporate donations, a competitive grant application process and more.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization. - Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff. Our staff consists of nine full time, twenty-two part time and approximatley 150 volunteers. Our annual budget is approximately $720,000 and revenue is generated to cover the annual budget. In addition, we have raised $3.8 over the past four years in a capital campaign to build our new Youth Tennis & Education Complex.
What is the potential demand for your innovation? - The demand in our 'neighborhood' (Durkeeville) is extensive (and a waiting list is maintained). We have been asked to bring our programs to different neighborhoods throughout Jacksonville and other cities throughout the state/country. We have served as a model site for several youth organizations and welcome the opportunity to share with others.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? - This field has not been completed
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. - The program first started as a way for founder, MaliVai Washington to do something with youth in his 'adopted' hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. Mr. Washington wanted to develop a relationship with area youth and to expose urban youth to a sport that they might otherwise not experience. The organization began by providing tennis lessons through other youth organizations. Through that experience, we realized that many of the youth had challenging education difficulties (unable to read at grade level for example) as well as behavior issues (missing school for no reason, getting in altercations and fights). We decided that it was critical not only to expose kids to tennis, but to use tennis to teach them things more important than tennis--leadership, sportsmanship, confidence and the value of team work, hard work, personal discipline and setting goals. Through the creation of our comprehensive youth development program, our youth have dodged many of the social issues that plague their neighborhoods--high school drop out and school retention, teenage pregnancy, gangs, drug use, etc--and are going on to lead successful lives.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material. - MaliVai Washington: Founder. Former top 20 ATP Tour player who reached the finals of Wimbledon and served on the USA's Olympic and Davis Cup Teams. Former broadcaster with ESPN. Owner of Washington Properties, LLC, a real estate investment firm. Married to Jennifer with two children: Noah & Zeta.
Terri Florio: founding Executive Director for 11 years. Former Sports marketing professional and special event director for 20 years including ProServ & Olympics. Contact Information:
Terri Florio
Executive Director MaliVai Washington Kids Foundation (Non-profit organization) terri@malwashington.com 2933 North Myrtle Avenue Suite 101 Jacksonville, FL 32209 United States Tel: 904-301-3786 Fax: 904-301-3789 Website: www.malwashington.com Discussions about this entry |
Hello Terri,
Great work! Have you considered entering the Young Men at Risk competition that Changemakers is hosting with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation? The competition will award $5000 for the most innovative work to support the expansion of their impact on a generation of young men. Additionally, select entries will be invited by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to submit proposals for a total of up to $1 million in grants to support promising innovations! I hope you will consider applying!
Happy Holidays,
Dana Frasz
Changemakers
Kevin Carroll
Changemakers Featured Commentator
Sport for a Better World Competition
This sounds like a great program with good funding – an area where a lot of other organizations are wanting. I was thinking a great play on words that you could use is “Serve Hope,” because that is what your service provides: hope to youth.
I wondered if you had tapped into relationships with other professional tennis players of color who could also be role models to your students? The American Tennis Association could be a good resource. (www.atanational.com)
Another question I have is: Is the only way to be involved is to be a tennis player? Are there ways to engage kids who have other skill sets and who can help put on a tournament? To my mind, the wider your net, the better your program can be. By understanding the extent of community around a sport – from fans to administrators to reporters and beyond – more kids can be reached and more lives can be changed. I think about my own life. When I blew out my knee playing soccer, I didn’t just quit. I found a way to stay involved in sports, and I’m still doing that. Sports and play are still my passions, even though my work now is speaking and writing.
You and MaliVai Washington seem to have accomplished much good work with Tennis & Tutoring over the last eight years, Terri. The commitment that both of you have to using tennis as a vehicle for providing strong academic and community-skills education is admirable. I appreciate the emphasis that you place on sports as secondary to even more essential skills that all of us must master. When you state that you wish "to use tennis to teach [young people] things more important than tennis," you eloquently depict what we ought to be supporting through all athletic programs.
Of course, Forida has been the training ground for many American tennis champions, and it's appropriate that you're attempting to introduce Florida youth who may otherwise receive no exposure to tennis with an introduction to this sport. I was wondering if athletes from nearby community colleges and campuses of the state university have been used to constitute the support staff? They, of course, could serve as role models for your kids in a dual fashion--both as successful athletes and as aspirants to higher education.
Steve Byars
Marshall School of Business
University of Southern California