via press release –
All first, second and third graders at Crozet Elementary School recently received tennis racquets and balls from QuickStart Tennis of Central Virginia, Inc. (QCV) thanks to a generous grant from the Smyth Foundation Fund in the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation.
Crozet Elementary is one of six “next level” schools QCV has “adopted.” Next-level schools are encouraged to supplement tennis in PE classes with after-school instructional tennis programs, kids’ tennis clubs and school-based junior tennis teams. These schools are visited by tennis professionals, and tennis festivals are held for the students. Also, tennis in summer school can be included in regular summer-school curricula through QCV’s QuickStart PRO Summer Program, which ran in three counties last summer. ?
A racquet in every hand! A smile on every face!
. . . AND a racquet in every bag!
Lynda Harrill, QCV QuickStart Coordinator says, “When QCV started, we focused on getting tennis into schools in every county in our service area. Once that was accomplished in August 2012, we turned our attention to building a tennis programming pathway at select schools. Crozet Elementary was chosen for several reasons. Principal Gwedette Crummie and PE Teachers Dawn Laine and Drew Maynard are big QuickStart Tennis fans, and Matilda Blue Tennis, a local tennis instruction provider, has an established after-school program there. This school was ready to take the next steps. Also considered were the school’s location in a growth area in Albemarle County where no additional recreational amenities are planned, the anticipated expansion of the school by 250-300 students in the near future, and the school’s high percentage of free- or reduced-lunch students as compared to the three other elementary schools in the western Albemarle feeder pattern. Crozet Elementary was a perfect candidate to become a ‘tennis school,’ joining Yancey and Greer as tennis pathway schools in Albemarle County.”
To see what QCV is doing to build a QuickStart Tennis Pathway at Crozet Elementary, please go to our website.
I didn’t realize the disparity of disadvantaged kids at Crozet Elem… 33% compared to 14%, 11% and 6%.
I knew that, but hadn’t looked so hard at the numbers. Certainly telling.
Yep, they are the other part of the community of Crozet. The silent
and fairly large part. Just like the rest of Central Virginia, the poverty rate is pretty high. That is why I will never understand
the people who have things always crying for more at other people’s expense…