Concord pickleball tournament raises $17,000 for Friendly Kitchen

More than $17,000 had already been raised before the first serve at Rolfe Park, where Concord’s second annual Friendly Kitchen Pickleball Tournament turned a weekend bracket into a food-security fundraiser. The event ran June 20-21 at 75 Community St. in Concord, with play scheduled from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days.

The tournament used a Round Robin format and split into men’s and women’s doubles on Saturday, followed by mixed doubles on Sunday. Entry was set at $50 for one event and $10 for each additional event, and raffles ran throughout the weekend. With those details built into the player experience, the tournament felt less like a standard clinic or social mixer and more like a community gathering organized around a cause.

The Friendly Kitchen is no small beneficiary. The organization says it has operated for 46 years, relies on an estimated 325 volunteers who rotate each month, and provided 80,000 meals last year through its dining room and Family Friendly Meals program. That added weight to the fundraiser’s early total, which surpassed the amount collected before a single match was played. The tournament page also showed how quickly the event has gained traction: last year’s inaugural tournament drew more than 100 signups.

The field reflected Concord’s own pickleball roots. David Stevenson, 86, was seen hitting balls back during his match, a familiar face in a sport he helped bring to Concord in 2013. Behind the scenes, organizer Rainville handled the coordination that makes a weekend tournament run smoothly, from brackets to raffles to the flow of matches by level and game type.

For pickleball retreats, clubs and tournament hosts looking for a model, the formula was clear: pair accessible play with a local mission, keep the format simple enough for a wide range of players, and give the event a civic purpose people can rally around. At Rolfe Park, the money raised before opening serves suggested that Concord’s players and supporters already understood the assignment, and the weekend only reinforced it.