808 WTA Future Stars Tennis Clinic for Little Lights Ministry

Written by Board Member, Ate Charmain Tan
We spent our friday afternoon with the children of Little Lights Ministry. It was founded by Pastor Joseph Casaje and his wife in 2007. It caters to the children from communities in Cainta, Pateros, and Pasig. Little Lights Ministry aims to nourish the body and mind of the children. On weekends they have supplementary academic and arts classes and also learnings about faith. Our partnership with them started in late 2010 and we’ve had 47 events with them to date. We did several film showings with them in the past as well as different workshops for them like cooking, origami, and basketball to name a few. Last year we also did a series of Tutorials with them which was held twice a week for 2 months. Last friday’s event was a Tennis Sports Clinic, a first for U! Happy Events. It was great seeing the children of Little Lights Ministry once again as we have known them since they were little.
The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) was founded in 1973 and is the principal organizing body of women’s professional tennis. In part with the Road to Singapore Campaign, where the Top 8 players will compete for the BNP Paribas WTA Finals in Singapore, the event last weekend was the WTA Future Stars. Some of the countries junior female tennis players competed at this qualifying tournament and the winners in each category will get the opportunity to represent the Philippines in the upcoming WTA Future Starts tournament in Singapore in October. The Cebuana Lhuillier Girls’ 14 & under and Girls’ 16 & under pre-qualifying matches were held last weekend at the Valle Verde Country Club in Pasig.
In conjunction with the tournament the WTA wanted to reach out to the less privileged children and introduce them to the sport. We were fortunate enough to have been given the opportunity to bring the children of Little Lights Ministry to participate in the WTA Future Stars Clinic for kids. It was everybody’s first time to play tennis so the children were very excited as they arrived at the Valle Verde Country Club. They were all eager to try learning tennis. As we got to the court the children were welcomed by the organizers of the event who flew all the way from Singapore.
The WTA Future Stars Clinic was headed by Melissa Pine, the vice president of WTA Asia-Pacific. She first got to know the children by learning all their names and then divided them into two groups. She had the kids do a warm up activity where the had to grab a ball from the ground and run all the way to the net and back. After the warm up she gave Wilson tennis rackets to the children. They were all very excited as they each got their own rackets and they got to bring them home after the event. She taught the kids the proper grip. She then showed them how to do forehand and backhand swings. She asked the kids to do several drills. They had to hold the racket face up and hit the ball upwards as many times as they could. She then taught them to let the ball bounce on the ground and hit it back down.
After the drills the kids were divided again into smaller groups as they were taught to hit the ball over the net. They used a lower net for the kids to practice on and the the trainers threw them balls. The kids had so much fun as got to do their forehand shots for the first time. Some of the kids did really well as they were able to hit the ball nicely. They got several water breaks as they kids were very enthusiastic and played with all their energy. They kept shouting, “My turn! My turn!” as they took turns practicing their forehand swings. After that they had a warm down by playing tag. The children got to have their photos taken with Melissa Pine. There were really nice shots taken and in one of them all the kids were throwing their tennis balls upward.
The children then got to keep their rackets which they happily swung over their shoulders. They also got to keep some of the practice balls they used earlier. On top of those they were also given really huge Wilson tennis balls. Everybody was so excited as they hugged the huge tennis balls. They were also given a cap and a Wilson wrist band that they can use when they play. After the fun Tennis Clinic the kids had their early dinner at the function room at the country club. Aside from the hearty buffet prepared for the kids they also got to enjoy big bowls of halo-halo. They ate happily and said they were getting cold from eating the halo-halo yet they still kept eating and laughing as they talked about the day’s activities.

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