Annual End-of-Season Youth Tennis Tournament & Community Jamboree

To celebrate a successful tennis season and all the handwork of our youth athletes and volunteers, KCTL holds a fun-filled day of youth tournaments and a community jamboree. The youth tournaments include an 11-and-over bracket and 10-and-under bracket that students from all four sites compete in. All players receive merit awards for participating in the season and the tournament. Tournament winners will receive trophies.

The community jamboree includes free food, music and entertainment. The event starts at 1pm and goes until the tournament is over. And we'll have a very special, first ever, finals match from those playing in the competitive division of the KCTL's Volunteer Tennis Tournament!

Saturday, October 4 at 1pm at Marcy Playground (corner of Myrtle and Nostrand Avenues) in Bedford-Stuyvesant. In case of rain, the event will happen on Oct. 11.

Check out more photos from our 2013 Jamboree and 2012 Jamboree on Facebook.

Week 17: Class Recap

At Marcy:

We hosted students from Sumner Tennis Club AND we had almost a full house at Marcy. So class was a very large group of students--the more the merrier, right?! Despite lousy weather, we managed to squeeze in almost a full class before it rained. We did stations including: footwork obstacle course, groundstroke target hitting, rallying, match play, and various "racquet-free" hand-eye coordination games for some of the smaller kids. Then everyone joined up on the big court for a game of breakout, which we didn't finish--in part because of the rain, but also because site leader Maayan told us if anyone caught a ball hit by Bryce (Sumner's site leader and very strong player,) everyone on the "catching" side of the net would be given amnesty to return to hitting. On our fourth try, a student caught one (!) and everyone scrambled back to the safe side, then shortly after, it began to rain.

Love All, NY: We Love You Too!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Our fundraiser last week was a huge success! We had a great turnout, our raffle raised a lot of money, the music was wonderful, the drinks were flowing, and overall, a wonderful time was had by all! Thank you again to M1-5 Lounge, City Winery and Sixpoint Brewery and all of our raffle prize sponsors/donors.

Check out all the photos on Facebook including photos of the students' art work.

Off-Court: Art Project

Off-court sessions at KCTL are typically reserved for verbal expression through guided conversation, but this past Saturday at Marcy, our players expressed themselves artistically instead. Working with one blank canvas and just six paint pens of a limited, basic color scheme (red, yellow, green, blue, black and white) our kids turned the prompt--"What does KCTL mean to you?"--into a mini masterpiece.

In between rallying and serving practice, the Marcy kids took turns contributing to the canvas. By the end of the class, they had collaborated to create a beautiful montage of tennis-related illustrations, as well as some tennis terminology and even a few professions of love for the game! It seems like our students at Marcy are not only athletes, but also artists! Just see for yourself:

Want to see the final masterpiece? See it first at the KCTL 5th Annual Fundraiser on Wed. Sept 3 to see Marcy's art board as well as the art board from Tompkins, Lafayette Gardens and Sumner sites!

Off-Court Talk: Back to School

Our off-court talk at Marcy was all about the upcoming 2014-2015 school year—now just around the corner for our students. Gary began the discussion with an announcement and a question: “One month from today, you will go back to school. How do you feel now that summer is almost over?” The question received mixed responses. Some kids were enthusiastic, while others were disappointed. The latter group didn’t shock us; we remember how happy they were to have begun summer vacation a few months ago.

After the reminder that summer’s freedom is officially slipping away, we moved into expectations for the upcoming school year. How will this year be different than the last? Advancing to a higher grade means the work will be a bit difficult, they said. At the same time, they remembered that they’ll get to reunite with both old and new friends upon returning to school. This heightened everyone’s excitement and led more to express that they’re now looking forward to the school year.

The conversation ended with questions about favorite subjects and future careers. We learned that Marcy has a few aspiring scientists, media professionals and artists!

Off-Court Talk: Fitness & Nutrition

This week for our off-court talk, we focused on Fitness & Nutrition. We discussed what are healthy foods, and what is consider not healthy for them. We also talked about how many meals per day we should eat each, and how the size of the portions we eat also matters in maintaining good health. We talked about the effects drinking plenty of water verses drinking countless cans of soda or sugary juices, and how water with every meal helps their complexion and helps cleanse their body. We discussed hydration verses dehydration and the effects of each. At Tompkins, we provided bananas and carrots to the students as part of the discussion on nutrition--as well as hummus, which many of the students were willing to try!

Regarding the Fitness discussion, we found out that many of our students are very active in one way or another... many mentioned that they exercise with family members and play other sports. This topic was one that the students really enjoyed expressing their views about, so much, that we'll likely revisit it again next week.

Love All, New York: Save the Date

Save the date for the KCTL 5th Annual Fundraiser

Love All, New York
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
M1-5 Lounge, Manhattan
More details to follow.

Want to support KCTL before September? Donate Now! Please and thank you.