"We can't wait for it to happen!”
With the groundbreaking for a tennis pavilion at Traverse City East Junior High School scheduled for any day now, community players, high school team members and fans of the game are eagerly awaiting the new facility. The $50,000 project is scheduled for completion by mid-October.
"At this point, everything is stored at the high school and people have to drag things around in their cars,” noted Sara Bergsma, a former Trojan tennis player, of courts that are used regularly for tournaments, school matches and physical education classes as well as by community members. "There's quite a bit of equipment you need to run tournaments.”
Thanks to fundraising efforts over the past three years by Friends of TC Tennis and grants of $10,000 each from the Oleson Foundation and Craig and Becky Tester, the project can go forward this year.
"Without them, they're the final cog, we wouldn't be doing it this year,” said Larry Nykerk, founder and director of the Friends group, of the Tester's gift.
Bergsma and her husband, Eric, have been chair of an annual fundraising tennis tournament put on by the Friends group since it began five years ago. For the past three years, the organization has earmarked $10,000 a year for the East Junior High School pavilion project, which will provide shade for players, officials and spectators. Other features of the improvements will include storage for balls and tennis-related supplies, tables, roll-drys and scorecards.
"Now, the place has no shade, no storage,” said Nykerk, noting that the school paid to resurface the courts two years ago and the Friends group helped with windscreens. "From Central's perspective, we need this.”
Nykerk, the long-time tennis coach for both the Trojan boys and girls teams, launched the Friends group in 2001 to shore up deteriorating tennis facilities at Central High School. Over three years, the organization raised $285,000 for an extensive, multi-phase upgrade of the school's courts that included a pavilion, new courts and upgrades to existing courts.
The group's mission has also expanded to helping improve courts around town. Last year, they disbursed funds for other area courts, including those at Traverse City West High School, West Junior High, Traverse City St. Francis and East Junior High. This year, Traverse City Christian School received funding for their new courts.
A lifetime sport, players from the community use tennis courts around town from spring to fall. In addition, former high school players such as Bergsma often stay involved and have children in the game. She and her husband have tapped this multi-generational energy year after year for help with the Friends of TC Tennis tournament, enabling it to raise approximately $15,000 each year.
"It's a really great group of people, the Friends and the community,” Bergsma said. "We've kept it going and the community has really supported it. It allowed us to keep looking at projects and actually to make them happen.”
"I think there's just a lot of great families that are really involved in tennis and want to see tennis succeed for themselves and future generations,” she added.