My Southern Momma always taught me to express my thanks when someone did something nice for me. Writing thank you notes was NOT my favorite pastime as a child, but I guess the habit was ingrained from an early age. Please consider this my thank you note to each of you!
Six years ago when I started ParentingAces.com, I never in a million years would have predicted how it would change my life.
As most of you know, I started the site – and the podcast that soon followed – as a way to gather and share information on navigating the junior tennis journey. I needed this information for my own family and quickly discovered that many others found themselves in the exact same predicament. The ParentingAces audience started small. Several of you would email or comment regularly, helping to guide future articles and interviews. For that, I am so grateful!
I want to say a tremendous THANK YOU to 10sballs.com, the ITA, UTR, Baseline Network, and Tennis Recruiting Network for supporting ParentingAces by sponsoring us, advertising on our site, hiring me to write articles, and promoting our material through their own channels. And an even bigger THANK YOU to Colette Lewis at ZooTennis for her ongoing support and mentorship. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Bobby Knight at College Tennis Today as well.
Recently, a dear friend of mine told me she was shocked to hear that I wasn’t being paid for the work I do and said she suspected that most of my readers just assumed I was being compensated by one of the tennis organizations or big manufacturers, so I just wanted to clear up that assumption. 🙂
My intent from the beginning was to keep ParentingAces available to anyone and everyone who found it useful. I never wanted to turn it into a subscription service that required payment. Since I was traveling to tournaments anyway with my son, it just made sense to take advantage of those opportunities to interview various players, parents, and coaches, and to share what I learned with all of you.
That said, I am a freelance writer and podcast host. For the past 2 1/2 years I have been out of the junior tournament loop as an active Tennis Parent. Now, when I go to any tennis event, it is as an independent party seeking to continually learn and share with my online community. I am not paid by anyone nor are my expenses covered by anyone other than my family’s personal bank account.
I love what I do and am so grateful to those of you who are regular readers and listeners. If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, please do click through to the links to my posts and podcasts. My advertisers, sponsors, and 3rd-party advertisers through Google Ads will get more exposure if you visit, and views and click-thrus are a small way for me to help offset some of my expenses.
If you are shopping for tennis books, please consider using the links on our Books page (click here), which is another way for me to bring in a little income through Amazon’s affiliate program.
Finally, if you find the content here valuable and would like to make a donation to help keep the lights on, the PayPal Donate button on the right side bar (click here) is an easy way to do so.
Again, I love writing and podcasting for all of you and have met so many incredible people over the years! I have no intention of shifting to a pay-for-play model with ParentingAces because I know and understand how expensive this journey can be and have no desire to add to that expense for any of you.
The best gift you can give to me is to keep reading and listening and commenting and sharing with your own Tennis Community. Thank you for your support and your friendship. We are all in this together!
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