Georgetown University Students for Education and Tennis, a group that will bring tennis to under privileged high school students in the D.C. area received approval from the Center for Social Justice, according to its founder, Devan Dalcol (COL `11).
“It started out as tennis playing, but now has turned into tutoring and teaching,” Dalcol said. “We are in the process of organizing everything. We presented the program to the CSJ last Thursday and it got approved last Friday.”
The Washington Tennis Education Foundation, a center which runs a similar program for adolescents throughout D.C., will help GUSET bus D.C. students to Georgetown University so the program can take place on campus.
“You don’t have to play tennis to be involved. We are trying to promote a well-rounded person,” Dalcol said. “We are stressing academics.”
Amanda Huynh (COL `09), a member of GUSET, said she is not sure when the program will officially launch. GUSET and the CSJ are in the process of developing the program, which she said will take about a year.
According to Dalcol, who participated in a similar program, 15-LOVE, during high school, the goal of the program is to pair up Georgetown students with high-schoolers from Washington, D.C. to build the students’ confidence in academics and extracurriculars. Dalcol’s personal experience with 15-LOVE made her want to continue the program at Georgetown.
“The program isn’t about tennis, it’s a conglomeration of tennis, tutoring, and creating a bond,” Dalcol said. “We just hope that the confidence transfers over to the academics and in more cases than not, it does.”
Huynh also participated in such a program, called Inner City Tennis. Both programs were founded by Arthur Ashe, the first black man to play tennis at Wimbledon.
Although the program may not launch until next year, Huynh said she is not concerned with finding students to volunteer to work with the program.
“Devan sent out a Facebook message and within 24 hours there were a lot of responses,” Huynh said. “A lot of people play tennis at Georgetown and a lot of people want to give back to the community.”
