A relatively new – but promising – tennis player, Shira Lipton chose Special Pops Tennis for her service project on her way to becoming a Bat Mitzvah. “When I learned about Special Pops Tennis, I thought it would be the perfect place to volunteer,” she said.
She was right. Shira wasted no time worrying whether she was giving the perfect feed to the athletes she worked with at the Country Club of Roswell training site on Wednesday nights. From her experience playing, she knew that tennis is about moving, so she challenged the athletes to move their feet while teaching how to hit a forehand or a backhand. Shira was always encouraging and positive and the athletes quickly took to her, greeting her with a hug and competing to stand next to her in warm-ups and pictures.
“Now that everyone knows me, it really feels nice to see how excited they are to work with me. I get a great sense of fulfillment seeing how much fun they are having and how much they’ve improved as tennis players,” she said. Shira was also a Unified Partner for the first time at the Special Olympics Summer Games 2 weeks ago. She may have been the last one off the court on Saturday, but we expect we’ll be seeing more of Shira in the future!
