Chandna EPATT 1

For my PACT project, I volunteered at EPATT (East Palo Alto Tennis and Tutoring). EPATT is a non-profit youth development organization for K - 12th grade students. EPATT's programs help disadvantaged students achieve academic and athletic excellence. Their belief, which I agree with, is that kids learn important life lessons from sports which they need to succeed in academics. I agree with their belief because I feel that sports have taught me valuable life lessons such as perseverance and teamwork that I would not have gotten otherwise. I chose to do EPATT for my PACT project because I enjoy tennis, and my coach Jeff Arons helped start EPATT many years ago. Since I enjoy playing tennis, using my knowledge of the game to give back to the community was a perfect fit. 

I thought I could see EPATT’s belief that sports teach life skills in effect many times while I was coaching there. For example, one day the head coach told us to take the kids through fitness to start off the day. As we had the kids run, there was one overweight kid struggling to keep up with the rest of the group. The other volunteer coach and myself told him he could sit out if he needed to, but he was insistent on continuing with the rest of the group. Eventually, towards the end, he did end up needing a breather, but it was clear he had pushed himself as hard as he could. I thought that kid really understood what it means to persevere that day, in a way he wouldn’t have learned in a classroom.