This grant was made possible through the efforts of the Cañon City Pickleball Players Association and the Cañon City Area Recreation and Park District:
BEFORE
and AFTER.
I started playing pickleball with my neighbors on tennis courts in 2012. The courts next door were tennis players that we would ask to fill in if we needed a foursome. Pretty soon they were coming over regularly and playing with us. I started giving free pickleball lessons and before we knew it we had more players then courts.
I went to the Park & Rec. and asked about some old tennis courts up by my house. Told the director that if he made them into pickleball courts the pickleball players would help with the money. After he asked me what was pickleball 😊, he said they’d write a grant. He called me up the first of Dec. in 2015 and said I’d have to come up with $5,000 by the end of January. I put $5,000 and his desk two weeks later. That was all money from “just” our pickleball players.
We started going to schools and giving classes in pickleball for the Physical Education teachers. We documented everything so we could include it in our grant. First two years we were turned down. The Park & Rec. have a “bulldog” for a grant writer that just won’t give up. Dawn Green tweaked the grant each year. In March of 2016 we got our grant. By Oct. we were playing on 6 brand new, wonderful, pickleball courts.
Peg Davison
Ambassador, Cañon City, Colorado