"Where one door closes, another opens," director and founder, danielle smith recounts a love of tennis' over 20 year journey

After leaving nursing at CHEO's neo-natal ICU, Danielle knew she wanted to continue serving the community, but by "creating something great," she said. 

Driving past Hillcrest High's abandoned tennis courts every day, courts once loved back in the 1960's, Danielle had an idea: why not serve the community through sport?

Whereas most people would choose to make a tennis club out of available courts, she knew through experience how clubs often have an air to them, restricting their facilities to people who can pay for lessons and courtside fees. Thus creating a financial barrier to the sport and not being open to the community at large. 

Instead of making a profit from developing the courts into a club, Danielle decided to do the opposite: to create Ottawa's first and only grassroots tennis charity, giving anyone and everyone the chance to play tennis. 

Speaking with the principal of the high school, both settled on a lease agreement, where Danielle and the team would use and maintain the courts and the school would own the site and let its kids use it during school hours. 

In 2003, she secured the Ontario Trillium Foundation grant and received $33,000 to resurface the decades-old courts. This spoke to her resilience in achieving her long-term goal of giving everyone from all walks of life the opportunity to play tennis, even if it meant putting in the work to revitalize long neglected courts. Shortly after Hillcrest, she expanded her charity, as Ridgemont Highschool also opened their two courts to Danielle and was resurfaced as well. 

Nearly a decade later, Danielle tried to figure out how to operate her ambitious plan: to give women and children the ability to play the sport for free through charitable donations, enabling them to build their confidence through learning tennis skills and match play, as well as promoting tennis as a sport. To do this, she hired high school students and scoured the city to find people with tennis experience to coach lessons, invited volunteers, high school volunteers included, to lend a helping hand, applied for more grants to upkeep the space and paid insurance to maintain its operations among many more initiatives to kickstart it. 

To truly achieve her goal, her charity needed to reach charitable status. After three years of waiting, in 2012, A Love of Tennis finally received such a status. 

However, not everything came easy, but Danielle never gave up, keeping her charity operational through it all. This was evident from frequent program schedule changes, as some years were more chaotic than others. Even worse, when COVID-19 raged on through multiple summers, programs were halted altogether, losing precious time to give people the chance to play. 

After COVID restrictions lifted, the charity had to be promoted all over again and it was a challenge to get it going. 

Now, A Love of Tennis proudly provides a variety of programs and events all spring and summer. With a donation based model, free tennis lessons are given to children aged 5 through 17, all with particular names categorized by age, women's beginner and intermediate lessons are provided to women of all ages, school programs on and off site are organized, tennis camps and tournaments are hosted, adult leagues are scheduled and team tennis leagues are created for kids. Although busy, the charity continues to have a myriad of opportunities open to all, with registrations filling up early and waitlists existing every year. 

In addition to A Love of Tennis, Danielle created Tennis on the Streets, a local initiative to provide tennis lessons to children of low-income families who do not often have the means or transportation to participate in sports or commute to sports facilities. Furthermore, through her collaboration with Tennis Canada's Girls. Set. Match. program, she has provided all-girls league programs and encouraged multiple women into becoming female tennis coaches and receive coaching certification. 

As a result of her passion for tennis and her perseverance lasting over two decades, opportunities have finally come along. Just this spring, she was invited to participate in the inaugural Women Who Rally leadership cohort, a 10-month learning program for women tennis coaches with Danielle being one of only 20 women chosen worldwide. What's more, in August, the courts at Hillcrest will be resurfaced to improve play as a result of successful grant applications. In addition, after years of not having lighting on court, Danielle finally received an Ontario Trillium grant of nearly $70,000 to update the lights in the fall to extend programming into evenings. 

After 23 years since A Love of Tennis' founding, creating tennis opportunities for all through thick and thin, a lot has been achieved thanks to Danielle and her family pushing for the charity's continued existence. Six hard courts have been refurbished, 10,000 volunteer hours were put forth by the community, a total of 12,000 children participated in programming, six coaches were certified as instructors by Tennis Canada, 10 schools were given tennis equipment and training as well as incorporating the sport into their physical education, 100% of participants improved their physical literacy scores and 85% retained participation.

Most importantly, besides the charity's milestones and personal achievements, it has touched the lives of so many people, something Danielle herself has made sure to promote. From giving children of all backgrounds and incomes the chance to play the sport and gain the confidence to play sports in general, providing mothers time for themselves, making youth players and coaches feel like they can achieve something, to even just giving people of all ages the ability to lead a healthier lifestyle, A Love of Tennis has done more for the community than Danielle has ever hoped for. 

"Where one door closes, another opens," Danielle said, referring to how post-retirement she was able to create a lasting impact on the community long after her nursing career. From saving lives, to changing them, she believes it's important to put the community first. That comes from giving people a taste of tennis, the world's healthiest sport, for free.