If there is a project that has become the pride of the Barcelona Tennis Foundation, it is the Solidarity Tennis School. It started in 2020 with a small group of boys and girls at risk of social exclusion from the Barceloneta neighborhood and today there are more than 300 children and young people from different neighborhoods who benefit from solidarity tennis classes.
Thanks to the funds raised during the Barcelona Open Banc de Sabadell-Trofeo Conde de Godó through initiatives such as ‘The most supportive racket’ or the ‘Palco solidario’, the Barcelona Tennis Foundation can pay for the monitors and the necessary technical material for the tennis classes, accompanied by a healthy snack. An initiative that allows children from disadvantaged areas access to the numerous benefits of practicing sports and living a healthy life.
In very few years the project has been consolidated and has not stopped growing, adding neighborhoods and beneficiaries to this beautiful initiative. Currently they have more than a dozen activity centers spread across the neighborhoods of Poble Sec, Poble Nou, Torre Baró, Baró de Viver, Zona Franca, El Carmel and Raval, as well as in Santa Coloma de Gramenet.
This has been possible thanks to the generous contributions received in each edition of the Conde de Godó Trophy, as well as the collaboration of many leading entities in social care in the Barcelona area and the metropolitan area such as Cáritas, the Casal dels Infants, the Pere Tarrés Foundation and the Barcelona Foundation for Education and Sports, of the Barcelona City Council.
The project is part of the Barcelona Tennis Foundation, created in 2019 with the aim of channeling all the existing solidarity action around the RCTB-1899. In this time he has not only done it, but has helped promote and grow numerous projects such as ‘Tennis with Values’, the person responsible for the Solidarity Tennis School.
It has recently been joined by the ‘Play All-Jugamos todos’ program, in collaboration with the Rafa Nadal Foundation and with the support of Nike. It was launched in October 2022, benefiting 80 vulnerable minors from different Barcelona neighborhoods in its first year. Like ‘Tennis with Values’, ‘Play All’ aims to offer boys and girls regular tennis training using sport as a tool for transmitting four positive values: sportsmanship, commitment, support and effort.
All attendees this year at the Barcelona Open Banc de Sabadell-Trofeo Conde de Godó will be able to contribute to the important work carried out by the Barcelona Tennis Foundation through the solidarity initiatives that will be carried out to raise funds. The most significant is the ‘Solidarity Racket’, the draw for the tournament champion’s racket. Last year more than 1,500 people bought entries in the draw for the racket wielded by Carlos Alcaraz in the final against the Greek Stéfanos Tsitsipas. Companies and entities will also be able to collaborate through the ‘Palco Solidario’, a novelty this year. A distinction that recognizes public and private entities that have a box during the tournament and have made a donation to the Foundation.
