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POJC-bound netters raise $4,300 in beach cleanup
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Posted on Aug 31 2022
CNMI junior netters set to take part in the 2022 Pacific Oceania Juniors Championships and other volunteers hauled 200 lbs of trash during a cleanup of Marine Beach this past weekend. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
In effort to help pay for the trip of the 17 CNMI junior netters that qualified for the 2022 Pacific Oceania Juniors Championships set for Lautoka, Fiji this September, the Northern Mariana Islands Tennis Association held a beach cleanup this past weekend and raised over $4,000.
“Well done on a great beach cleanup effort everyone. It was really hot out there and you all managed to collect over 200 lbs of trash to clean up Marine Beach. We contributed about $4,300 to our POJC funding. Fantastic!” said NMITA president and CNMI national tennis coach Jeff Race.
The CNMI sports hall of famer also admitted that it’s one of the most unusual beach cleanups NMITA has done, but they’re glad to do it to raise airfare and associated cost to the regional tournament.
The cleanup contributed about $4,300 to NMITA’s POJC funding. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
“I think that it was the most unusual beach cleanup that we’ve done. There was much less larger pieces of trash on the beach but so many small things. It actually made it more difficult,” he added.
Race admitted though that the $4,300 raised during the beach cleanup is just a drop in the bucket of what they need to finance their trip to Fiji.
CNMI national tennis coach Jeff Race leads the start of the beach cleanup effort. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
“We need over $55,000 to make the trip with 17 players and two adults.”
A total of 17 CNMI bets made the cut in the 2022 POJC and they include boys 16 and under’s Minsoo “David” Kwon, girls 16’s Serin Chung and Savita Sikkel, boys 14’s La Hunn Lam, Nason Wessel, Henry Choi, and Siwoo Lee, girls 14’s Hoo Wang, Hannah Chae, and Anna Kwon, boys 12’s Yutaka Kadokura, Ian Chae, Ryan Choi, and Jihun Park, girls 12’s Lina Tsukagoshi, and wildcard entries Irin Chung and June Yu.
Of the 17, Serin Chung and Lam went all the way to win the championships of their respective age groups.
After an absence of two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a total of 19 junior netters from the Northern Marianas saw action in the 2022 North Pacific Regional Championships. They duked it out against 16 players from Guam, six players from the Federated States of Micronesia, and five players from Palau.
