Junior Alex Livingstone, recipient of the 50^th Anniversary Service Scholar Award, is already quite busy with her prize-winning project, Advantage Tennis.  Practically born with a tennis racquet in her hand, Livingstone has grown up with the sport and wants to share her love of tennis with others who wouldn’t have been able to otherwise experience it.

“I created Advantage Tennis to give children from low-income families a chance to exercise and learn a new sport,” Livingstone said.  “Often, these children don’t have the money to purchase equipment and lessons.”

Livingstone was inspired to start her service project when she saw kids playing with broken sports equipment outside of Berkeley’s gates.  “I wanted to find a way to provide young children in the Tampa Bay area with the opportunity to play an afterschool sport in a fun, safe environment,” she says.

Since winning the grant to start her own community service project last spring, Livingstone has been hard at work to ensure the kids that arrive on campus to play tennis will have an amazing time.  Starting in October, local children from the Boys and Girls Club and nearby elementary schools will be bused to Berkeley to learn tennis.  In addition to tennis instruction, the kids will also receive racquets, t-shirts and meals.

“Organizing a service project of this level requires massive amounts of work and close attention to detail,” Livingstone says.  “I still have to order trophies and t-shirts, collect racquets from our sponsors at Wilson and prepare snacks and drinks for the kids.”

Advantage Tennis is soon to be in full swing!  Volunteers are needed on the 3^rd, 10^th, 17^th and 24^th of October to help coach, supervise, and manage the clinic.  Contact Alex Livingstone at [email protected] if you are interested in helping out.