BIXBY, Okla. — What looked like a day of friendly competition on the pickleball court carried a much more profound purpose for the Tulsa Dream Center.
In partnership with Courts & Commons in Bixby, the Dream Center hosted their first ever Paddles of Hope Classic fundraiser, in hopes of stabilizing their programs amid federal funding cuts.
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CUTS COMING: Tulsa Dream Center's after-school program impacted by funding loss
"We're raising fund for our boys and girls in the after school program to make sure that we can help us continue to tutor our boys and girls and provide a safe place for boys and girls in west Tulsa," said Executive Director Tim Newton.
This effort comes on the heels of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services announcing a stop to the pandemic-era five-dollar-per-day add-on for all recipients.
2 News Oklahoma's Clifton Haskin previously reported that this would come as a deficit of about $300,000 and reduce the number of children they serve across their programs from 600 to 125.
"Now, we're trying to be creative, and how can we find more funding to make sure we can continue to do the work that God has called us to do at the Dream Center?" said Newton.
Hence, a pickleball tournament.
Before the first paddle made contact, the tournament had already raised $60,000. That was more than half of their $100,000 goal for the day.
Even still, Newton said their work isn't over.
"The fundraising doesn't stop," he said. "Out of the 650 boys and girls who went through our program last year, 92% of them left the program reading on grade level. And so we want to make sure we’re able to impact more and more boys and girls and replicate that and scale it up and even have more sites to do the same thing.”
For those who didn't make the tournament, there are other ways to support through the Dream Center's website.
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