Teammates on the tennis court partners in community service

?Meet the teenagers behind YoUnity, a Birmingham, AL based volunteer initiative that promotes global mindsets and empathy for others through service –Yasmin Fisher and James Giles, Jr.? Yas and James have been teammates for seven years. They started playing tennis together at the James Lewis Education and Tennis Foundation, a National Junior Tennis League site housed at George Ward Park in 2015. NJTL was started by Arthur Ashe in 1969. They are also teammates at Top Notch Tennis, a high performance tennis program at Highland Tennis Center.

Yas is a junior at Hewitt-Trussville High. James is a freshman at Ramsay International Baccalaureate High School. Both scholar-athletes have rigorous school and sport schedules, and they enjoy community service. They needed to find service opportunities to fit their schedules, so they started their own initiative–YoUnity. YoUnity seeks to bring comfort to those who seek refuge. When thinking about what type of initiative to create, they thought about what they have in common. They both have extensive international travel and relatives of different cultures and religions. They want to promote empathy and awareness of global issues among peers.

Their first project is to welcome refugees from Afghanistan in partnership with the Birmingham Islamic Center. Many of the first refugees arrived in Birmingham in late fall according to this ABC News report. They contacted friends, relatives and teammates for donations. They had two donation sites–one in Trussville and one in Birmingham at George Ward Tennis Center. They collected four car loads of clothes, toys, toiletries and gift certificates.