Sep 14, 2018 3 min read

The repeated sound of rackets hitting tennis balls meant good news for Hekima Place.

The home for orphaned and vulnerable girls in Kenya, founded by South Hills native Kate Fletcher, was the beneficiary of the first Courts of Support charity event on Aug. 26 at Glen Creek Tennis Club in South Park Township.

Throughout the day, players competed in tennis tournaments in a variety of formats – plus pickleball, “one of the fastest-growing racket sports,” according to event organizer Charlene Salus – on the club’s six indoor and four outdoor courts.

The morning featured a triples tournament, a variation on the general tennis theme with which not everyone is familiar.

“You rotate every point, so it moves very fast,” Salus, a Peters Township resident explained. “It’s a lot of fun. It’s social. Each match lasts about 10 to 15 minutes, and then you rotate courts and you play another team.”

Triples tennis actually has been around since 1979, when Penn State University professors Geoffrey Godbey and Frank Guadagnolo created a set of rules. Each team can have up to four players, and the maximum was reached at Courts of Support, with 12 teams for a total of 48 players.

All registration fees paid by the players go toward supporting Hekima Place, Salus said.

A tennis-playing friend, Glen Creek member Gary Dellovade, introduced her to Jim DiPiero, former president of the nonprofit organization’s U.S. board of directors, and she offered her assistance.

“I organize fun monthly tennis events,” she said, “and so we decided to put our love for tennis to a good cause.”

Salus met with Glen Creek director Mike Ridener about the possibility of the club hosting a tournament, and that certainly went well.

“Within 10 minutes, we hit it off, and he donated this entire day, all the courts,” she recalled. He also donated private lessons and a membership to the event’s silent auction, and some of the club’s pros provided free warmup lessons.

Volunteering for Courts of Support were members of the Peters Township High School girls’ tennis team, who also provided a gift basket for the silent auction, along with 10 percent of the proceeds from a recent booster club fundraiser.

As for the overall cause, Fletcher started Hekima Place – named for the Swahili word for wisdom – in 2005, two years after she moved to Kenya to volunteer with children who were orphaned because of an AIDS epidemic.

Near the nation’s capital of Nairobi, Hekima Place has grown from 10 girls living in rented space to 86 on a spacious residential campus today, ranging in age from infants and toddlers to university students.

For more information, visit www.hekimaplace.org.