{"id":356183,"date":"2021-11-19T06:07:03","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T20:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=356183"},"modified":"2021-11-19T06:07:03","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T20:07:03","slug":"pickleball-group-donates-to-center-for-living-independently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/pickleball-group-donates-to-center-for-living-independently\/","title":{"rendered":"Pickleball group donates to Center for Living Independently"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pickleball
Pickleball Federation of the Northern Mariana Islands president Nelson Krum, second from right, turns over pickleball equipment to staff of the CNMI Center for Independent Living on Capitol Hill. (MARK RABAGO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rechristened Pickleball Federation of the Northern Mariana Islands last week donated pickleball equipment to the CNMI Center for Independent Living as part of its community outreach to introduce the sport to local people with mental and physical disabilities.<\/p>\n

PFNMI president Nelson Krum said they donated a portable pickleball net, six pickleball paddles, and a dozen balls \u201cso they can start playing right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from the equipment, the fledgling group also striped CLI\u2019s parking lot to enable CLI\u2019s consumers to play the sport right in the office\u2019s premises.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to extend our outreach to include pickleball to the disabled community. The first efforts toward that was striping the parking lot at the CLI,\u201d said Krum.<\/p>\n

He said unlike other sports, pickleball is unique because while it\u2019s an incredibly easy sport to pick up, it\u2019s a hard sport to master.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout a large investment we can get these people work in their hand-and-eye coordination. Get them moving more and get them involved in a sport that can be right here in their parking lot and they don\u2019t have to travel anywhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Krum, who co-founded what originally was Paradise Pickleball Club of Saipan with his wife, Donna, in August 2020, said future plans include acquiring specialized wheelchairs for pickleball.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, we will also include the wheelchair community because there are special pickleball games that involve specialized wheelchairs that right now are $2,500 each so they\u2019re a little out of reach. The big thing right now is get this out for the disabled community and then work on acquiring these special wheelchairs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

CLI executive director Susan Satur said the PFNMI donation is like a breath of fresh air for the agency and their consumers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Krums\u2014Nelson and Donna\u2014lined the court and they donated the equipment needed\u2026next week they\u2019ll teach our consumer how to play pickleball. It\u2019s a wonderful thing because it will get our consumers outside and playing activities again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Satur said that because of the recent local spread of COVID-19, they haven\u2019t welcomed all their consumers back and since the onset of the pandemic, not all of them were able to play sports they usually took part on to follow COVID-19 protocols.<\/p>\n

She said before COVID-19, CLI consumers were able to play basketball, volleyball, softball, and boca. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnly half could come [because of COVID-19 protocols]. With pickleball it doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s non-contact and less people play,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Satur said everyone\u2019s already excited to learn about pickleball. If plans don\u2019t go sideways, CLI will be welcoming back its consumers on Monday, Nov. 22.<\/p>\n

In a little over a year of existence, PFNMI has grown from five regular players to 20. It also now has three courts at the Church of Latter-day Saints along Middle Road and four courts on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n

With over 3 million players, pickleball is arguably the fastest growing sport in the U.S. and its popularity has spread all over the world as pickleball\u2014with the recent recognition of the CNMI\u2014is currently played in 67 countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rechristened Pickleball Federation of the Northern Mariana Islands last week donated pickleball equipment to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":356185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[21098],"class_list":["post-356183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-living-independently"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}