For junior Riya Monday, tennis has been a core part of her life since she was six, quickly falling in love with the game ever since she picked up her first racket.
For years on the Hilltop, Monday has made an impact on the court, making Hackley’s Girls Varsity Team as an eighth grader in 2022. Once on the team, she quickly rose to become one of the team’s top players, making it to the final in NYSAIS Doubles in her first year, and assisting HGVT in winning back-to-back IVY titles in 2022 and 2023. However, after years of making an immediate impact on the court, Riya decided she wanted to make an impact off the court.
Working to give back and help others fall in love with the sport, Monday teamed up with Eda Buyul of Rye Country Day School to start a racket collection drive to give back to others.
“Eda and I have been really lucky with all the sport has given us. We have a super strong friendship because of it, and have had the experience of growing up for six years side by side through this amazing sport. We have been playing tennis our whole lives and realized that we have a lot of used rackets with nothing to do with them,” Riya said, “We wanted to do something with [these rackets] and give back for others to use.”
They elected to partner with the Kings County Tennis League (KCTL), which works to fulfill “a vision ofis a world where every young person in Brooklyn holds the power to grow through tennis,” working with getting youth into the game who live in public housing and wouldn’t have had access to the game of tennis.
For Riya & Eda, one of the criteria they sought in an organization was its status as a non-profit. “We looked at and researched many different organizations, but it was our goal to be a non-profit that would work with us.”
KCTL is a non-profit and gives free lessons to kids ages 3-18, and offers many volunteer opportunities, hoping to educate youth both on the court and off the court, and to spark their interest in tennis.
According to Riya, KCTL goes above just teaching kids how to play.
“KCTL really spoke to us, primarily because of how they go beyond just teaching and supplying tennis to these kids; they work to transform and grow the game, bringing tennis to places that didn’t have access prior,” she said.
Throughout the fall tennis season, the duo collected around 75 rackets for Kings County from donations from Hackley and Rye Country Day, with donations still coming in.
For those who don’t have rackets to give, there are still other ways to donate. KCTL is always looking for volunteers to help with their program, and so are other organizations across the tri-state area.
“By donating, people are not just giving others the opportunities to get practice and lessons, but for some to fulfill a life goal of being able to pick up a racket and play.”