Bayou Feature | Serve and Return
ARTICLE BY APRIL C DOUGHTY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY KELLY MOORE CLARK
GALA PHOTOS BY AG IMAGERY
What began as a way to find healing after personal loss has grown into a mission of hope and opportunity for Tyneka Hill. Through her nonprofit, Serve and Return of Louisiana, Hill is introducing tennis to a new generation while teaching young people the importance of community, connection and giving back.
For Tyneka Hill, tennis has been the unexpected blessing she didn’t know she needed, one that has not only given to her, but has also given her a means to give back to her community. Hill discovered tennis later in life, later than one might expect a person to take up a new sport, but the timing turned out to be exactly right.
At 37, after her husband of 13 years, Melvin Goines, passed away, Hill picked up a tennis racket for the first time. What began as a simple desire to get outside, exercise, and try something different quickly became much more. “And I found that tennis was very therapeutic,” she said. “Like just going out and bouncing the ball, swinging, and trying to hit it was just a release.”
As she grew to love the sport, Hill began thinking about how different her own life might have been if she’d discovered tennis at an earlier age. She wondered how many young people in her community could benefit from the same physical, mental, and emotional outlet if they simply had greater access to it than she’d had. “I cannot describe how it helped me,” she said, “but it was worth the money.” At the same time, Hill understood that the cost of tennis could put the sport and its benefits out of reach for many families in her community.
Hill grew up on the south side of Monroe. She graduated from Neville High School and later from the University of Louisiana Monroe (ULM). She said, “We had a fun, loving family.” Both of Hill’s parents worked, and her mom had two jobs, so Hill and her younger brother spent a lot of time in the Booker T. area of Monroe where her aunt and other extended family lived.
Hill’s brother, Terrance Hill Jr., passed away when he was 19. They were close in age and spent a lot of time together, so losing him was hard. Through her family’s grief, Hill said her mom Beverly showed great resilience, which helped her become more resilient as well. Thinking back, Hill said her brother Terrance would probably laugh at the thought of her being so passionate about tennis. When it came to sports,“it was always football with my brother and my dad,” she said, “because the exposure to tennis just wasn’t there, and there was no tennis talk. In elementary, it was football. It was kickball. It was softball. It was never tennis.”
Fortunately, Hill’s journey into the world of tennis has connected her with people who have helped her learn more about the sport and make it more accessible to others in her community. Mark Taylor was her first tennis coach. Hill hired Coach Taylor to coach her youngest daughter, also named Taylor, when Taylor was 12. So that connection was at Hill’s fingertips when she was looking for something to keep her mind and body busy after her husband passed. Coach Taylor provided Hill with paid lessons at the Forsythe Park Tennis Complex.
As her interest in tennis grew, Hill also connected with Glenn Jenkins who offered free tennis clinics on weekends through the City of Monroe at Marbles Recreation Center, and eventually, she also met Paul Trahan through the ULM’s tennis program.
When Hill discovered how beneficial tennis was for her, she started thinking about sharing her love for it with the community. Watching and talking with children participating in some of the free weekend tennis clinics at Marbles Rec strengthened that idea.
Hill recalled a pivotal conversation with one particular little boy. She asked if he was enjoying tennis, and his response sparked something in her. “‘Oh, I love it,’” he said. “‘I just wish I could do it more, and I wish my friends could do it.’” In that moment, Hill found herself wishing she could make that happen for him and for other kids like him. She knew the courts at Marbles weren’t big enough, and she knew the occasional weekend clinic wasn’t enough. Hill began brainstorming ways to give back to her community, with tennis at the center.
After sitting and talking with the little boy at the clinic, Hill prayed about her idea to uplift children, give back to her community, and make tennis more accessible. When Hill began sharing her vision with others, she said she was met with encouragement rather than doubt. She wanted to make sure she would have support behind her before diving in because no one can run a nonprofit successfully without supporters and volunteers, and she knew that once she committed to the cause, she’d be all in. Hill described herself as a go-getter and a change-maker, someone who finishes what she starts and follows through on her word.
There would be no going back once she started moving forward. As Hill tested the waters around her idea, she found that no one told her it was a bad idea or that it would not work. The positive reception, coupled with God’s perfect timing and Hill’s own determination, helped her turn the idea into an organization with a powerful mission that is now growing and thriving in Monroe and beyond.
As the idea for Hill’s organization was taking shape, she found herself thinking about the nature of tennis and how it’s played, how the ball must be served and returned to remain in play. She thought about the give-and-take nature of it and how that nature is consistent whether children or adults are playing. She also thought about the cycle of giving to children and watching them give back or speaking to them and watching them speak back.
These ideas were already bouncing around in Hill’s head when she found herself watching a TED Talk in the parking lot of Marbles Rec before a weekend clinic. This TED Talk was unique. It was titled “How Every Child Can Thrive by Five” and was given by a seven-year-old named Molly Wright. In it, Wright aims to help adults better understand how to help young brains reach their full potential. One thing she said “can really make a difference” is something scientists call “serve and return,” which she said is “just a grown-up way of saying connect, talk, and play with us.”
As Hill listened, she suddenly saw how perfectly the words serve and return fit not only the sport of tennis but also this idea of connecting with children and the very essence of community service. In that moment, everything clicked. Hill said, “I was like, ‘Thank you, God! That is the name.’” She’d found the perfect name for her organization she wanted to found, one that could actually encompass all the things she wanted to accomplish.
Hill went on to found Serve and Return of Louisiana, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization built around her belief that tennis can be much more than a sport. For her, tennis was an outlet, a source of healing, and a way to move forward during a difficult season of her life. Today, two years later, the sport of tennis serves as the foundation for a mission that has reached far beyond the sport itself and far beyond Hill’s own life. Hill said, “I tell everyone, God gave me the vision. He had to because I don’t know how I could have done it without Him.”
Today, the sport of tennis serves as the foundation for a mission that has reached far beyond the sport itself and far beyond Hill’s own life. Hill said, “I tell everyone, God gave me the vision. He had to because I don’t know how I could have done it without Him.”
Since the beginning, “it’s taken off,” Hill said. Through its mission, Serve and Return is creating positive change in the lives of youth and local communities by promoting active lifestyles, community service, and the many benefits of tennis. Hill believes tennis should be accessible to everyone, and her work reflects a broader vision of using the sport as a vehicle for connection, confidence, healthy living, and service.
In the last two years, Serve and Return has launched multiple service-based programs. One of these programs is a Racquets and Jackets drive. As its name suggests, the goal of this program is two-fold: to seek donations of jackets to ensure children are prepared for the colder winter months and to seek donations of tennis racquets, which are crucial to expand access to the sport locally. Hill reported that through this program, Serve and Return has donated over 300 jackets to local elementary schools.
Another program they’ve implemented is a Raise the Racquet Gala, which helps provide scholarships to high school students. So far, the organization has awarded six scholarships. Serve and Return has also filled backpacks for children heading back to school. And of course, one of the biggest ways they give back is by offering no-cost tennis lessons to kids and adults and by introducing tennis at local elementary schools. This year, they also put on their first tennis tournament for junior players 18 and under: Rally on the River, a Serve and Return of Louisiana Tennis Classic. With the help of members, donors, and volunteers, these programs and others have been successful.
One of the most exciting things that has happened during the organization’s early growth is that they received a timely donation of property from Eddie Clark. The property, located at 1207 Griffin St. in Monroe, is where the Elite Lounge used to be in the Booker T. area where Hill spent much of her childhood. Now the property houses Serve and Return’s new headquarters. An existing building required renovation, but that renovation was recently completed, and the organization celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in September this year. The headquarters will be a much needed meeting place, a location for winter seminars, a place to store equipment, a site for tutoring, and more. “That was one of our huge milestones,” Hill said.
Next Serve and Return plans to complete their tennis facility on the same property, which will be another big undertaking, but the organization has already accomplished so much that Hill has no doubt they’ll make these plans happen. Along the way, there have been moments where she couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. But Hill said the light has always reappeared through the grace of God and through a community that comes together “because they see the impact that we make and that these children love tennis.”
Perhaps the most meaningful part of Hill’s work is seeing that impact begin to come full circle. Some of the young people who have participated in Serve and Return’s clinics are now thinking about ways they can give back to their own communities. They’re getting off their phones and connecting with each other and with their communities. “Just introducing them to something new and providing them with some new opportunities,” Hill said, “I think that in itself opens a whole other realm, and then for them to see us, to see what we’ve done in just a short period of time, it’s serving a community, returning hope. I believe that’s what it is.”
Hill has watched young people who first encountered tennis through her programs begin thinking about how they can give back themselves. One has gone on to join a tennis team and now coaches. Another is starting to sow the seeds of her own nonprofit.
Giving back in these ways, Serve and Return alumni become examples of the very kind of lasting change Hill hoped to create from the beginning. For Hill, who once picked up a racket simply looking for a way to get outside and find an outlet, seeing how her organization’s service is being returned may be one of the greatest victories of all.
Hill credits God for guiding her along the way and connecting her with the right people and resources at the right moments, as well as her mom, Beverly Jordan, for teaching her resilience. Her boss, Dr. Katina Beverly at Twinkling Smiles; her parents (Beverly Jordan, Aaron Jordan, and Terrance Hill Sr.); her daughters (Dr. Taryn Hill, a chiropractor and graduate of Louisiana State University, and Taylor Hill, a senior staff accountant and graduate of ULM); her friends who help makeup the organization; and her church members have been some of her first and biggest supporters.
But truly, so many people, including members of the organization, supporters, volunteers, community partners, donors, family, and friends, have connected and showed up for Serve and Return. Every connection has helped Serve and Return grow from an idea into a thriving organization, one recognized as the U.S. Tennis Association’s Member Organization of the Year for Louisiana.
But for Hill, the recognition is only part of the story. The real measure of success may be found in the young people discovering tennis, finding their own confidence, and beginning to imagine how they can make a difference, too.
