AYTEF is part of the USTA Foundation's National Junior Tennis and Learning (NJTL) network of more than 250 nonprofit youth development organizations that offer free or low-cost tennis and education programming to under-resourced youth. This year, AYTEF was recognized for program excellence and named the 2022 USTA Georgia NJTL of the Year! | |
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Congrats to AYTEF's New Executive Director!
Effective January 2023, Kirsten Robles will be promoted to AYTEF Executive Director. Kirsten has shown incredible passion, dedication, and vision as AYTEF Director of Tennis, and we are excited to embrace her leadership moving forward.
Current Executive Director, Debbie Kennedy, will transition to a part-time role as AYTEF Business Development Officer and will oversee grants and donor outreach.
It is an exciting time at AYTEF as our staff and programs continue to grow to meet the needs of our AYTEF families and youth!
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NJTL Leadership Camp
AYTEF youth attended the 2022 NJTL Leadership Camp hosted by USTA Georgia in collaboration with USTA Southern and the Georgia Tennis Foundation. AYTEF had five families attend and seven youth representing our NJTL Chapter. Our youth had a blast and really enjoyed participating and meeting NJTL Chapter youth from all throughout the state of GA.
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2022 Holiday Awards Night
AYTEF youth, families, staff, and volunteers celebrated a successful 12 months of programming at our annual holiday party and awards night at Fair Oaks Tennis Center. The event included an ugly sweater contest, crafts and games, and dinner for all in attendance. Each youth participant received an AYTEF sweatshirt, a hand-written card from our staff, and a holiday goody bag.
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GameSetMatch Serves 42 Families!
In January of 2022, our tennis and enrichment program, GameSetMatch, served 13 families. As of November 2022, AYTEF serves 42 families with GAME (4-week beginner tennis course), SET (our core academic enrichment + tennis program), and MATCH (development of competitive, tournament players). AYTEF currently has 19 GAME participants, 39 SET participants, and 7 MATCH participants for a total of 58 youth in our core programs. We will be moving 7 youth off our GAME waiting list in December.
In January 2023, we will add another day of GAME on Thursdays to help meet program demand and decrease the amount waitlist time. This addition will help keep the class cohort small and consistent so that our staff can focus more on the development of our beginner players, setting them up for success as they advance to the SET and MATCH programs.
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MUST Ministries, Recycling and Gratitude
In October, we took a day off from the courts to carve and paint pumpkins. Our youth thoroughly enjoyed this activity and got to show off their creative skills while learning to collaborate together.
The last two weeks of October were spent learning about community service and brainstorming projects AYTEF could engage in as a program. AYTEF youth tackled two projects - a MUST Ministries Food Drive and a Recycling Initiative.
November concepts included identifying things we are grateful for and ways to show thanks to others. To complete our holiday thank you card project, AYTEF students researched what it means for our organization to be a nonprofit and the significance of having donor support. Youth also benefitted from a special presentation given by Richmont Graduate Students on how to control emotions both on and off the court.
For more information, pictures and videos, visit Vi's AYTEF Life-Skills Blog.
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Registration for the winter session of
AYTEF STEM Learning Labs
is now open! Participants will explore SCRATCH programming, graphite circuits, and plant and animal cell experiments. Curious about this program? Watch the No Stick Slime and Origami Tree experiments participants completed this fall.
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Our next Block Party will be on Friday, January 27th.
Registration will open the first week of the new year.
Take a look at what our parents had to say about 2022 Block Party events -
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AYTEF Golf Tournament
The fourth annual AYTEF Regions Bank Golf Tournament was held at Dunwoody Country Club on October 24, 2022. Blessed by beautiful fall weather, the event was AYTEF’s largest fundraising event of the year and the most successful golf event to date. Thanks to the generous support of sponsors such as Regions Bank, Cobb County Toyota, UTA, UBS, and Porsche, AYTEF secured critical funds that will directly benefit the tennis and education programs for under-resourced youth at Fair Oaks Tennis Center. AYTEF sincerely appreciates the 17 tournament sponsors, 128 golfers, and 10 volunteers that, through their participation and generosity, are helping youth achieve on the court, in the classroom, and in life.
Save the date for next year's tournament on Monday, October 23rd. Please email Debbie Kennedy if you would like to purchase a sponsorship or foursome for the 2023 event!
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#GivingTuesday Update
Thank you to the 41 donors who helped AYTEF raise $3,918 towards our Giving Tuesday shoe campaign! In partnership with PGA Tour Superstore, AYTEF hosted a special event honoring the one year milestone of several of our GameSetMatch participants. Each participant was gifted a brand new pair of tennis shoes that we were able to purchase due to the generosity of our Giving Tuesday donors.
If you donated to the #GivingTuesday campaign, be on the lookout for a photo/video event recap that we will send out via email at the beginning of 2023. Thank you for your support!
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Help Graham collect used tennis racquets to benefit AYTEF!
One of our amazing AYTEF high school volunteers, Graham Bauer, is collecting used tennis racquets to benefit AYTEF. Please consider giving a racquet or dollar donation to Graham's cause, as 100% of the proceeds will benefit our organization. Thank you, Graham, for your consistent involvement and support of our youth.
For more information on how and where to donate, CLICK HERE.
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The mission of the Atlanta Youth Tennis & Education Foundation is to ENRICH the lives of under-resourced youth through tennis and education. We SERVE through sport so that our youth participants can ACHIEVE without limit on the court, in the classroom, and in life.
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