Big Green Win Northeast Region Community Service Award

HANOVER, N.H. – The Dartmouth women's tennis team has won the Northeast Region Community Service Award for its continued work with Buddyup for Life.

Buddyup is a nonprofit that provides adaptive programming for children and adults with Down Syndrome. Some of the activities provided include tennis, fitness, summer camps and life skills classes.

Even after the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down, the team was still able to work with these athletes remotely throughout the school year. They were broken into groups of two via Zoom, one Big Green tennis player and one buddy.

The goal of the program was three-fold: one, to work on tennis skills, even from afar; two, to work on communication skills, for which the team had training beforehand; and three, to work on jump roping. The most well-received activity: karaoke and hangman. Less so were the pushups and sit-ups. After a year of doing this virtually, Dartmouth has high hopes of getting back to working with the athletes in person soon.

"I think it speaks volumes that, even during the pandemic, the team was giving back to the community," head coach Bob Dallis said. "I think it was super important and was very affirming for them to work with these athletes."

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