Serves in Support
Members at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, Queens came together to play tennis and raise funds for the American Cancer Society…
This week’s blog post is a little delayed because I was waiting to post it today. Today, I was part of a panel discussion titled “Serving a Purpose and Giving Back.” It all started at the end of the summer when my good friend Gustavo Loza, from USTA Eastern, reached out to me and asked me if I would be interested in helping him host an event benefiting the American Cancer Society.
Gustavo and I met the first summer I was in NY, around 4 years ago when we were helping out at our friend’s event in Governors Island. Shout out to Johnathan Raude. We are both from Mexico but had never crossed paths until New York, but we quickly realized we shared a lot of the same interests and even friends back home in Mexico. I don’t remember when I started volunteering with/for him but he always kept me in the loop, whether it was events for me to play in or volunteer in, but each one was fun and unique. I come from a long line of tennis players and doctors so helping others and playing tennis is in my blood. Drawing inspiration from both has resulted in a lot of volunteering events. With Serves in Support, it was no different.
My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019 and it was such a scary time. Even though there have been many advancements with cancer research and treatments, one can’t help but to think the worst when you hear the “c” word. I vividly remember hearing my mom’s voice through the phone telling me her diagnosis. I collapsed in the back hallway at my office, crying and hoping that I wouldn’t bump into anyone. It was hard to breathe or think or even stand. My mom had known for a couple of days and she knew I had been going through my own personal things and she chose to wait until I was back from vacation to tell me the news. My mom lives in Kentucky while I live in NYC, but I had never felt so far away and useless as I did at that moment. When I was supposed to be strong for her, I couldn’t and so she was for me.
She underwent two surgeries in the coming weeks and I went back to Kentucky for some time to be with her. Thankfully, my manager and his manager were absolutely great about the whole thing and supported me in any way that they could. My coworkers and friends from the tennis club even sent my mom fruit baskets and flowers, despite not even knowing her. After the surgeries, my mom had to go through many weeks of radiation treatments that literally burned her skin but in the end, it was worth it because she is now cancer-free!
There are far worse cancer stories and I am thankful that hers is not one of those. Her diagnosis gave us all a new perspective and through it, I learned that many people are touched by cancer, whether it be directly or indirectly. Many people confided in me that they had battled cancer before and others gave me resources to leverage to help my mom through her treatment. It was just truly the best-case scenario in a situation you never really want to or expect to be part of. This was the reason that I jumped at the chance to participate in the Serves in Support event with Gustavo.
Gustavo has organized hundreds of ultra-successful events, so typically he takes care of everything. This time was different because this was the first event in the “series” and he left it all up to me. He told me to organize a tournament or event, however, I wanted it and make it happen and that he would help me along the way. And that’s exactly what he did. My tennis club, the West Side Tennis Club is beautiful, magnificent even, so we knew we wanted to have it there. With COVID, we had to limit the number of participants, unfortunately, but since tennis is one of the safest COVID activities, we were able to spread out across many courts. I had tremendous support from Akemi Kinoshita and the rest of the pro-shop staff at the club as well as from the board. It helps when two of your closest friends run the Entertainment Committee at the club, too!
In terms of the tournament, we wanted to make it as fun as possible for everyone involved. Whether they were playing or spectating, we wanted to make sure everyone felt like they belonged and were making an impact. The event was a 2-day mixed doubles tournament, where each team consists of 1 male and 1 female player. For the first day, JP Evangelista and I made the pairings so that we could have new teams playing and not the same teams dominating like usual. We had some of the best players of the club playing on the first day and all of the matches were very close. Winners kept advancing and “not-winners” were still able to play other matches as we had a compass draw. For the second day, we had teams switch partners each round with their opponents, which was a bit confusing at first but everyone got the hang of it. The best part was that players were able to play with people they don’t normally play with and I think a lot of new friendships were created this way.
As for the non-players, only a few could spectate from our Ladie’s Terrace but they were quite energetic. After the first day, we hosted a raffle that featured items donated by the members and local restaurants/businesses in Forest Hills. Some of my influencer friends even donated raffle items such as a Wilson tennis racket from @unomasgonzo, a virtual tennis lesson from @tenniswithgary, and a free metabolism audit from @smalletics. Huge shout out to all that donated raffle items. Even if Dasha and Brendan “won” the prize that they donated!
During this crazy COVID year, we were all dying for some form of social interaction. We all wore masks and kept our distance as much as possible and I think most people had an enjoyable time. I hope that we are able to improve upon last year’s event to host an even better event in 2021. However, 2020’s event was quite literally thrown together in a matter of two or three weeks so it’s amazing that we were able to raise just under $30k! It would not have been possible without the amazing support of the members and staff at the West Side, the partnership from USTA Eastern, or the support from the American Cancer Society. At the end of the weekend, I remember coming home and laying on my couch feeling exhausted but more importantly feeling so fulfilled. It was truly an amazing and humbling experience and speaking about it today at the virtual conference brought back all of those memories and happy feelings.
I want to invite all of you to consider hosting your own event or fundraiser like this. The ACS and USTA Eastern have worked tirelessly to put together a website and toolkit with all of the information you need to set up your own event. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you would like to be involved. Every single dollar helps and the hardest part is just starting. We, the ACS, USTA Eastern, and I, are all here to help make your event a success so feel free to leverage us for help.
There are way too many people to name that were extremely helpful. Huge shout out to Megan Stewart, June Ingram, Gustavo Loza, Kristen Semple, JP Evangelista, Mario DiPreta, Akemi Kinoshita, and every single person that donated, participated, shared the post/link. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
