The Punta Cana Tennis Center: An Inspiration

My earliest memories are from my summers at my grandparents’ house in the Dominican Republic. As soon as school let out, our family headed south to join my grandparents and my cousins.  My grandparents are from Italy; my grandfather’s work led them to live in various countries including Argentina, Singapore and the United States. When my grandfather retired, he searched for a home where his children (who lived in Europe and the United States) could gather for holidays. With a love of the beach and tennis, he selected the Dominican Republic. 

My first summer in the Dominican Republic was spent strapped on my mother in a Baby Bjorne as my family explored the Island. The D.R. is where I learned to swim, to ride a bicycle, to play tennis, to speak Spanish and to identify every different species of crab on the shore. I learned to coexist in one house with my Italian grandparents, my German cousins and my American cousins as we laughed, fought, compromised and explored settling into a loud, loving, active and exciting summer. The Dominican Republic is also where I learned some of my earliest lessons about equity and impact. 

My Dad’s family has always cared most about two things: tennis and food. The days revolved around what meal came next, who was cooking and who was buying the ingredients. No sooner did the meal end than the conversation shifted to the next meal! If the conversation was not about the food, it was about every point from the tennis games that morning and what the likely result of the tennis games that evening would be. 

The Punta Cana Tennis Center was our hub. I started playing tennis there as soon as I started to walk. Running after balls, swinging the racquet, playing tag with the ball boys as a toddler, led to lessons and clinics and camps as a child, and then to matches and games as an adolescent. I kept my eye on the ball as I played the sport, but not lost in the periphery was a commitment to social activism and educational equity that distinguished the Punta Cana Tennis Center from many others. 

The Punta Cana Tennis Center stands in the center of the community as a place where members meet, gather and play. It also serves a much greater mission: to provide educational access to local children of nearby Dominican Republic communities. I saw early on how mission driven work of sports organizations could impact lives. The center offered children jobs as ball boys. The Center’s promise to these boys was grand: we will provide transportation both ways, we will provide income, daily meals, clothes and sneakers and the opportunity to earn tips from members. Most grand, however, was the Center’s commitment to provide a completely funded private school education to the children who worked there. I watched the club deliver on its promises year after year, and I watched the members of the tennis community help them do so. I watched the ball boys soar and become tennis coaches and even saw several of them enroll in United States universities on tennis scholarships.

My early summers were spent building friendships with the young ball boys as I lingered around the club waiting for parents to finish their games. I do not know if I realized it at the time, but what was happening at this place had a profound impact on me. As I matured, I knew I would get involved. I started with tutoring the children in English informally. As we swung the racquet, I taught them English words associated with the sport they loved. Those lessons led to working on an English language program to help develop their language skills and tutoring them on their summer school homework in the classes they had in English. 

I return to the Dominican yearly in December to celebrate my grandfather’s birthday and the holidays. I spend large portions of those two weeks with the ball boys helping them prepare for their finals in their English classes. As much as I look forward to the holiday celebrations, I look forward to meeting up with my friends and hoping that some of them have the ability like I do, to pursue their future dreams.