LIMA, OH (WLIO) -Â It was a beautiful day for young Lima tennis players to pick up their racquets and get outside.
The Lima Area Tennis Association (L.A.T.A.), in partnership with the Lima Parks and Recreational Department, wrapped up its summer tennis camp on Thursday at the Collett Street tennis courts. The long-time summer camp invites kids from ages 5 to 17 to come and sharpen their skills and have fun.
Kids played fun and creative games to work on the fundamentals of the game while being coached by their mentors, many of whom are local players from high school and college who started out in the camp themselves and volunteer their time to give back to the kids in the area.
"First of all, definitely the coaches, because I don't see a lot of these coaches around the year and then playing the games and being competitive. I just really like the impact these coaches had on me as I was growing up to love tennis, and I like helping with kids, so I think that would be so fun," commented Leila Staley, an incoming freshman tennis player for Elida High School.
"Each year, we have a consistent number with this camp. This year we had, on average every day, around 32 pee-wees and 55 juniors, so there's some days where we were pushing 100 a day, so it was just really cool to see these kids coming out here and willing to try tennis, even if they don't play it in high school, just willing to try it out and just be out here and have a good time." stated Jacob Ramirez, a board member for L.A.T.A. and the summer camp director, as well as a senior tennis player for the University of Northwestern Ohio.
The awards ceremony included 12 medals that were handed out and two racquets, along with a scholarship for one of the mentors hard work. Also, all of the kids received a t-shirt.
