Tennis for Tails

Raising funds and awareness for animal shelters

Background Information

Hannah decided to start this project, Tennis for Tails, due to the recent passing of her golden retriever.  Her family adopted him when she was in kindergarten and he immediately became a part of her family. Sadly, he passed away during Hannah’s semester at Alzar School. When he passed away, she was still deciding on what she wanted her project to be, so she thought her CLP would be an amazing way to honor his life.  Hannah has always grown up around shelter animals, so she decided to make her project in benefit of animal shelters so that other animals could be given the same opportunities her family has given their dogs.

Implementation of the Project

Hannah found starting her project to be very easy. It took a long time, but she created a website.  After that it took some time to find a location of the tournament.  She looked at multiple locations and ultimately decided on her country club.  After that, she had to create Google Forms so that people could sign up for the tournament.

Throughout the whole process everyone was super helpful. The day of the tournament was nothing short of amazing. All of the volunteers were willing to do whatever was necessary, and the players were very eager to play despite the fact that it was hot outside. – Hannah Lovett

One of Hannah’s challenges on the day of the tournament was in getting everyone’s attention when she needed to make an announcement.  She thinks that next year she can be more assertive.

Results of the Project

In the end, Hannah spent about 100 hours working on the project. The most time consuming part was finding sponsors for the tournament.  They ended up getting ten sponsors for the tournament, and over twenty people played in the tournament, which exceeded their expectations!

Hannah did not need many volunteers the day of the tournament, but three people helped me get drinks for participants and set up things.

The registration fee to play was $35. After multiple donations, sponsors, and registration fees we ended up raising over $2,500! The $2,500 was split two ways and sent to two animal shelters: Save-A-Pet and Rock On Rescue.

What’s Next?

Through this project, Hannah was able to learn a lot about herself as a leader.  She learned that she needs to give herself time to do things so that she is not rushing.  After this project, Hannah wants to continue to learn more about being a leader every day and wants to always grow and never stop developing her leadership capabilities.  She wants to use these newfound leadership skills in her education and be more assertive in group projects, and be more motivated with her schoolwork.  Through this project, she has also decided to play a larger role in her school Key Club. This fall, Hannah will organize a food drive for her community and she plans to host a second annual Tennis For Tails tournament.  The goal for next year: to work on getting more people to sign up.