Advantage Cleveland Tennis and Education, Inc.’s (“AdvantageCLE”, formerly known as Inner City Tennis Clinics, Inc) mission is to provide Cleveland’s youth with tennis, wellness, fitness, literacy and creative expression programs to promote hope, healthy living, and productive futures.

AdvantageCLE was established in 2010 to provide Cleveland youth with programming in tennis and educational programs in an annual summer camp. The Cleveland Clinic was a founding partner who provided funding and developed a wellness curriculum. The United States Tennis Association Foundation also was a partner and AdCLE became a National Junior Tennis and Learning (NJTL) Chapter that also serves as a Community Tennis Association (CTA). 

After serving the Hough community for the past 10 years as a Summer Enrichment Camp, AdvantageCLE has expanded to year-round programming to better serve the children in the Hough neighborhood.  To date, the camp has reached over 4,000 children from over 70 area schools and provides a safe place each summer for children to participate in its unique programming at no cost to the families. 

While tennis is one of the mediums used to teach fitness and foster character development, the goal of AdvantageCLE is not necessarily to create outstanding tennis players. The goal of AdvantageCLE is to provide children and teens with literacy support, fitness, creative expression, and social-emotional wellness within Cleveland’s most challenging schools and neighborhoods.  Providing opportunities for children to learn the life lessons of tennis and perhaps give them access to playing at the high school level and beyond is a bonus.

 Over the past ten years, AdvantageCLE has served over 4,000 students from the Cleveland area.  In 2019 alone, 234 children ages 6-16, of which approximately 85% are from low-income households, and this year, of our 87 registrants for our summer program, 94% of children qualify for Free and Reduced Lunches.  Of those children, 99% are African-American.  Children and teens who attend camp come from over 70 schools, mostly in the City of Cleveland and surrounding neighborhoods such as East Cleveland, Shaker Heights, South Euclid, and Euclid.  In the City of Cleveland, the child poverty rate is 53%.   This summer in our virtual camp, of our 80 registrants, 45 schools were represented from around the City of Cleveland.

Option 1: Program Development

The VISTA’s job description would include the following:

1. Work with the school district to help create a middle school after-school program (starting with a sixth grade STEM curriculum)
2. Expand existing partnership with area university to develop curriculum, including STEM opportunities such as codings and robotics.
3. Create professional development opportunities for physical education teachers to introduce tennis into the curriculum.
4. Create a spring tennis skills event among the three schools based on the USTA Foundation’s Net Generation Red Ball Curriculum.
5. Lay the groundwork for an inter-school tennis program among three schools in the Hough neighborhood.
6. Form partnerships with local universities and high schools to find tennis volunteers to help teach and coach the children in the ACE program.

 Option 2: Development/Fundraising

The VISTA’s job description would include the following:

1. Create a series of tennis club member-only and member-guest events that benefit AdvantageCLE as fundraisers.
2. Work with the AdvantageCLE Young Professional Group and/or Junior Board (still being created) to enhance their fundraising and event planning efforts.
3. Use AdvantageCLE’s online donor platform to raise awareness, build membership, and plan events in the tennis community.
4. Create and implement a fundraising plan, with the Fundraising Committee, and work to enhance the annual events, such as the Pro-Am, the Cleveland Open, US Open Watch Parties, etc.

Cleveland is a hub for tennis-related sports marketing companies including TEAM8, IMG and Topnotch Management.  Networking opportunities with executives from these companies would be arranged for VISTAs who are interested during their year in Cleveland.

We would be interested in candidates from a variety of backgrounds and experiences.  Most important would be a mission-driven individual who has a passion for leveling the playing field for children in urban areas in order to provide opportunities for kids to reach their personal and academic goals.

Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Supervisor: Liz Deegan, [email protected]
Weekly Schedule: M-F 9-5/flexible; (M-F 8:30-3:00 camp; M-R 10-5 ACE)
Housing Provided: Yes, apartment shared between two VISTAs
Ground Transportation Stipend: Yes
Dedicated Workspace Provided: Work spaces are provided in the schools and in the recreation center where programs are held
Monthly Living Allowance: $1027.88
Relocation Stipend: $750 (those living more than 50 miles from organization)
Post Service AmeriCorps Benefit: Segal Education Award ($6000) or Cash Benefit ($1800)