“In tennis and in life, the one who serves best often wins.”
This is a quote that Iola tennis head coach Jenn Bycroft has used for years but on Wednesday, she and her team put it into practice.
Bycroft and her girls held a “serve-a-thon” to help raise money for victims in Houston affected by Hurricane Harvey.
Over the past week, the Iola Fillies have gone around collecting donations and pledges for the event. People had the choice of either contributing a flat donation to the cause or pledging a certain dollar amount for every successful serve.
Then on Wednesday, the players took to the courts serving 100 balls each.
The money raised will be sent to New Hope Church in Houston, a church with 10,000 members across four campuses in the area. The church has already begun the cleanup effort.
“The church said, ‘Just make sure they know that 100 percent of the pledges are going back to the relief effort and not to a general church account,’” Bycroft said. “It’s all going back to help the victims and this group has already helped to clean out 100 homes in the area.”
This isn’t the first time that Bycroft and her team have used the serve-a-thon to help others in need.
“We did a similar thing a few years ago,” Bycroft said. “One of my brother’s really good friends in Indiana used to teach and coach and he was suffering from ALS. He has since then sadly passed away, he was very young. So I told my brother this would be a cool thing to help their family out because they had a 10-year-old son. We were able to send them a check for over $1,000. So I thought let’s try it again.”
While official numbers won’t be in until later this week or next week, Bycroft isn’t worried about trying to reach a specific dollar amount. Her team this year is smaller than the team that had participated in the past so naturally she expects the amount of money sent to be lower.”
“Even if it’s only $500 this time around when I talked to the pastor’s daughter at New Hope she said anything helps,” Bycroft said. “They’re trying to help people get back into their homes and rebuild.”
In addition to the funds raised by the tennis team, the Allen County Multi-Agency Team at the high school will be partnering with the Fillies to send along money they raised as well.
Bycroft isn’t planning on sending the money until later this month and will still be accepting donations.
Checks should be made out to New Hope Church (put “Flood Relief” in the memo line), and given to Bycroft.
Bycroft can be reached at (620) 228-3090.
SERVICE BY SERVING: Fillie tennis players raise money for Hurricane Harvey victims
