2024 Fundraising Letter
Hello Prescott Tennis Players, Sponsor and Supporters,
This is our annual update on all things tennis and our request for your financial support. PATA’s mission is to promote and support tennis for everyone in the Prescott Quad City area and this year has seen some great gains and some great losses.
PATA’S main goal is to grow tennis in the community, by providing tournaments, leagues, tennis-themed events, youth school programs, activities designed to promote tennis and most importantly, expanding access to the game for everyone.
First, a huge thank you to everyone that contributed to the success of Prescott tennis this year including our sponsors:
We must sadly report that Dave Hibbs has retired. We held a well-attended bon voyage party at Triple Creek – PATA and the tennis community wish Dave all the best in his new journey. He will be missed!
As to the status of Yavapai College, we have nothing to report but silence. We have reached out to all of the Board members and only one took our call, promising to investigate….but crickets…so we could really use your support. We have purchased shade and storage for the High School and they have been very welcoming. Thankfully the High School was able to offer us a highly discounted rate compared to YC for the Mile High tournament, but the draconian actions of the College simply couldn’t support holding a match there, despite the fact that PATA and its members have heavily invested in the courts and the College is 100% community-funded with an endowment in excess of $50 Million dollars.
There are still some improvements that need to be made at the High School, including, more shade and seating along with improving wheelchair access. We are once again asking for your support and hoping you can dig a little deeper this year so we can pass on your deductible donations to expand facilities at the High School which has truly been welcoming and supportive of the tennis community in general. We have also applied for USTA Grants and are optimistic they will help as well. We will keep you posted, but really need the community to pitch in and make the High School an ideal destination, given all of their efforts to support us.
Regardless, 2024 has been a great year for tennis in the quad city area. Regular adult tournaments had 202 Total Players, 253 entrants, 34 draws, 217 Total Matches. The Memorial Day tournament had 81 players and 79 total matches were played. The Mile High Open had 83 players with 80 total matches. We also hosted the Yavapai County tournament and numerous social events.
USTA League play was also very strong with 177 total participants across the 4 seasons. 14 of our 16 leagues teams qualified for sectionals, but most notably, our 40+ 3.0 team made it all the way to nationals! It was the first time in 17 years since a team from Northern Arizona qualified for nationals. The Winter Flex League had 48 Participants with 60 Matches and the Summer Flex League had 57 participants with70 matches.
As a Board, we are pleased with the progress we’ve made toward our mission of promoting tennis for everyone. We have high hopes for enhancing all aspects of our service provision and expanding into new areas. Toni Sullins has taken over teaching the kids after-school program at Taylor Hicks for 2nd through 4th graders. For juniors, there were 3 high level junior tournaments in Prescott, with over 150 players involved between the 3. We ran an early development camp in June for 11 and under players and a coaches’ training in the morning of one Saturday. High school teams did great this year with over 60 kids between Prescott and Bradshaw teams boys’ and girls’ teams. We also ran two YMCA camps for a week long each 12pm-2pm in the gym, reaching about 20 kids between the two weeks.
As for 2025, here is what we have planned so far:
