Bridgehampton Youth Tennis Project seeks funds for equipment and court repairs
A $13,500 equipment drive kept rackets and bags moving, but Bridgehampton Youth Tennis Project now needs repairs to protect the court path serving about 100 campers each summer.
Bridgehampton Youth Tennis Project is asking for fresh support to keep its youth tennis ladder intact, from the 36-by-18-foot court at Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center to the full-size courts at Bridgehampton High School. The project says it serves about 100 campers each summer, and the latest push is aimed at buying equipment and repairing courts before that pathway starts to fray.
The need comes after a recent equipment fundraiser brought in $13,500, money that mostly went toward rackets, bags and accessories for players. Now the focus has shifted to court repairs, a practical fix that matters in a program built around first contact with the sport. The youngest campers, ages 5 to 8, learn on the smaller court at the center. Older players, ages 9 and up, move to the high school courts once they are ready for a full-size setup.
The program began in fall 2015, when founder Jack Louchheim, then a 14-year-old Sagaponack resident and eighth grader at Pierson Middle-High School, started raising money to make tennis more accessible for Bridgehampton children. The initial target was about $50,000. By the time the court was ready, about $48,000 had been raised, and donations later pushed the total over the goal. The youth court opened in June 2016, following a ribbon-cutting on June 18, 2016.
That court sits inside a broader community institution. Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center was founded in 1950 to serve low-income families, and its 2023 expansion brought a new $3.3 million, 7,828-square-foot facility to the six-acre site that helped create the center in the early 1950s. The center says it serves underserved children and families from Islip to Montauk, a reach that has kept Bridgehampton at the center of East End youth access work for decades.
Oliver Mirsepahi is the project’s director, and he and Gray Gordon say they have coached with the summer camp since 2021. The project credits coaches and volunteers with making the last ten summers possible. For this season, the ask is simple: keep the smaller court playable, keep the equipment stocked, and keep the route open from a child’s first swing to real match play.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
