Whirlwind Reading News
Here are some articles on the community service and Project Activities I have done! ~ Corinne
Corinne's Community Service
WE DID IT!
GIBSON-ASHE MIXED DOUBLES TOURNAMENT ADDS $1000 TO READING CHALLENGE'S TOTAL
GIFT TO WHIRLWIND FOUNDATION
AUGUST 26, 2021
Tournament organizer, Corinne Chau, would like to thank everyone-- players and donors-- who made the Gibson-Ashe Mixed Doubles Tournament a success! The tennis event raised $1,000.00 and brought the final total the Whirlwind Reading Challenge is donating to the Whirlwind Johnson Foundation to $4,314.00. "I truly hope all the players enjoyed this tournament as much as I did," Corinne said. "After two years of doing the Whirlwind Reading Challenge, this tournament was such an amazing way to end my community service project!"
Congratulations to our 3.5 & Under winners Sandy & Kominh Thongphok and to finalists Stacey & Rich Gottfried and to our 4.0 & Above winners Chanhtel & Nanthy Thongphok and to finalists Sadie & Mike Callow! In addition to thanking the high school tennis players who competed in the Junior Exhibition Match, Corinne would like to thank Woodlawn, Maryland's Joe Mann Awards & Trophies and the Washington Tennis & Education Foundation (WTEF) for their outstanding support. To see the tournament photos, click here.
PLAY ON CITI-OPEN
CENTER COURT AT CORINNE'S
GIBSON-ASHE MIXED DOUBLES TOURNAMENT
JULY 31, 2021
What began nearly two years ago with a whole lot of reading will end this summer with one of the things Corinne loves best: playing tennis! As a culmination to her volunteer project, the Gibson-Ashe Mixed Doubles Tournament will take place on Saturday, August 21st (please note that the Rain Date is the next day, Sunday, August 22nd). Qualifying matches must be completed in advance no later than Wednesday, August 18th. Top advancing junior and adult teams to play Semi-final and Final Rounds on Center Court! The tournament will have two divisions: Adult and Junior which will each have two categories, 3.5 & Under (intermediate) and 4.0 & Above (advanced). PLEASE NOTE: If registration is limited, play in the intermediate and advanced categories may be combined. To register, click here -- Tournament Sign-Up
Got questions? Call (240) 461-7578. Spectators are required to wear masks.
CORINNE RECEIVES
USTA YOUTH LEADER AWARD
AUGUST 20, 2020
Yesterday, Corinne received the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Mid-Atlantic
Section ServeItForward Youth Leader Award. She was recognized by USTA Mid-
Atlantic for utilizing her "Whirlwind Johnson Reading Challenge" to make a valuable
difference in our tennis community during the current Covid-19 pandemic.
"I am very honored to receive such an award," Corinne said. "I think that Dr. Johnson
would appreciate that as a junior player I care so much about the history of Black tennis
and about his legacy." For more information, please visit USTA Mid-Atlantic's website
or click here for the article from The Baltimore Sun.
KIDS LEARN ABOUT DR. J
DURING BLACK HISTORY MONTH STORYTIME
FEBRUARY 21, 2020
As America celebrates Black History Month, Corinne went to Maryland's Hollifield Station Elementary School to do storytime. She introduced the afterschool program students to Dr. Johnson and the historic American Tennis Association (ATA) as well as to legends Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe, who began playing tennis when they were the ages of the storytime students.
Corinne also showed the kids several tennis books including Dr. J's biography, Whirlwind: The Godfather of Black Tennis by Doug Smith and the children's book, Who Are Venus & Serena Williams? written by James Buckley, Jr. and illustrated by Andrew Thomson. In addition, she treated the students to a reading of The ABCs of Tennis, written by Cheryl Lagunilla and illustrated by James Himsworth. Afterwards, Corinne did a Question & Answer time with the students during which she responded to questions about tennis tournaments she has played, if she likes singles or doubles better and whether she thinks Venus and Serena Williams are the best women tennis players in the history of the world. Fun fact: Some of these outstanding questions were posed by two boys who claimed to be 300 and 1,000-years-old. Despite their very advanced age, both boys are excited about Corinne returning to the school this spring with raqcuets to do a tennis activity with them and the other kids!
In the meantime, Corinne thanks Hollifield Station's Afterschool Program director, Mrs. Dell Ashley-Booker, for allowing her to read to the kids and she looks forward to seeing them all again soon.
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META TENNIS PARTY
NOVEMBER 2, 2019
Even after over 100 years, the American Tennis Association (ATA) is still around. Each year its Maryland/DC/Virginia section, the Mid-Eastern Tennis Association (META), has a tennis party. Corinne has been going since she was little!
This year, the tennis was great and it was also a great opportunity for her talk to people about Dr. Johnson and the Whirlwind Johnson Foundation. "I even got some donations!" she said. Corinne would like to thank META section president, Ms. Cheryl Sloan, for making her feel welcome and for allowing her time to speak.
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Project Activities
CELEBRATING
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH
April 9, 2020
Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? Or that lines from Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" are written over the door leading to Centre Court at Wimbledon? Yes, that is true and in celebration of National Poetry Month, I read "If" again along with lots of other poems.
Unfortunately, because of the coronavirus pandemic, I have been at home with my family self-quarantining. I have been passing some of the time reading different kinds of poems including William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 29," "Quilts" by Nikki Giovanni, "Incident" by Countee Cullen, "When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats, "O Captain, My Captain" by Walt Whitman, and "I, Too" by Langston Hughes. I really like "It's Dark in Here" by Shel Silverstein because it is very funny and my old favorite, "I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth because of its imagery (and because I love daffodils and personification)! My new favorite is "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks. I like it because even though it is short, it has alliteration and its words are powerful.
If you're social distancing and looking for interesting things to do, try watching this video of Federer and Nadal reciting "If," reading some poems yourself or taking a look at my website's list of Books to Read! -- CORINNE
READING "THE CRUCIBLE"
AND A VISIT TO SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS
MARCH 8, 2020
Recently, when visiting Boston, Massachusetts, Corinne's family drove up to historic Salem, Mass. The town is famous for a lot ofreasons but mostly because of the Salem Witch Trials that took place there in 1692. This tragedy happened in real life but was turned into a famous play called "The Crucible." Written by playwright Arthur Miller, this literary classic is one of the works Corinne read as part of her Whirlwind Reading Challenge.
While in Salem, she visited the Salem Witch Museum. According to Corinne, actually visiting historic Salem was very interesting. She said that she "really liked the wax figures at the museum," adding that the figures, the dialogue and "things like the fake boulders they used to press Giles Corey were great visualizations that helped me understand the play better."
Corinne also visited the 17th-century Old Point Burial Ground which has a memorial to each of the 20 innocent people executed as a result of the Witch Trials, including Corey and Rebecca Nurse. When the memorial was unveiled in 1992, the dedication speech was given by writer Elie Wiesel, who was a Nobel Laureate and Holocaust surivivor. Corinne had recently read Wiesel's book Night and was not aware of Wiesel's part in dedicating the memorial. Learning he had done so enabled Corinne to get even more from Salem. The visit helped her make connections between the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s, the Holocaust of the 1940s, the Red Scare and the McCarthy Era of the 1950s, and the political climate of America today.