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- Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the GoTennis! Podcast,

powered by Signature Tennis.

Check out our calendar of tennis events at LetsGoTennis.com.

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And now let's get into our recent conversation

with Justin Adler.

Justin is on the board of the Kyle Pease Foundation,

which works to improve the lives of people

with disabilities through sports and beyond.

Justin invited Kyle himself,

as well as his brother Brent to talk about the foundation

and their upcoming tennis and pickleball event

hosted at Horseshoe Bend Country Club in Roswell.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

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- Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.

We appreciate it.

I wanna start with you, Justin,

because you have been focused on running this event

at Horseshoe Bend, that is a tennis and pickleball event,

but it is donating to the Kyle Pease Foundation.

And I want you to first start and tell us about the event.

Tell us who you are, Justin,

and let us know about the event

and what's happening in October.

- Awesome, yeah, thanks for having us on.

My name's Justin Adler.

I am on the board of the Kyle Pease Foundation.

I've been on the board.

I think this is my fourth year.

So it's fourth year, yeah.

So this is our third annual tennis and pickleball event.

Pickleball is new this year to the event.

This year, it is held October 24th at Horseshoe Bend Country Club

in Roswell, Georgia.

And it's men's, women's and mixed divisions.

On the last two years, we've raised a little right around

$30,000 each year, so it's all over around 60,000 giving.

All the proceeds actually benefit the grant program

at the Kyle Pease Foundation.

I'll default to Brent on that,

on what that setup looks like,

but essentially the foundation gives away

a few grants a year and the athletes,

or with the foundation after race,

with the foundation to be eligible to apply

and they can use that money for various items.

And the last two years, we've enhanced

to existing grants at the foundation,

but this year we will have a standalone grant.

So we're really excited for that.

We have formed our own tennis committee

to kind of help me with the event,

because it's gotten to the point where we need help.

So from a fundraising standpoint,

from actual day setup.

So we're looking forward to the third annual event

on October 24th.

- That is fantastic.

And I want Brent to expand on the grants and how all that works,

but I want to jump right to Kyle,

because Kyle, your name is on this thing.

So this is about you a little bit.

And as often people are,

I say, no, no, it's not about me.

It's about the others that we serve,

which is kind of where I expect you to start,

but I want you to tell us about the Kyle Pease Foundation.

Will you?

- Yeah, absolutely.

again I echo the words.

Thank you for everything that's on.

Never been on the tennis podcast.

So this is pretty cool.

But the Kyle Pease Foundation was started in 2011

with the mission to improve the rest of the people

with disabilities through sports and beyond.

I grew up a big sports fan,

and I love the falcons and i love the braves.

And I never miss a game.

And so our family really were very passionate about sports.

And in 2010, I went with the Florida State University,

the Yale of the South, according to him.

And he was out of shape to say the least.

So he got back into shape with triathalons

and endurance sports our good and amazing

and his willingness to get back into shape.

So I asked him,

“Can people in wheelchairs do Iron Man?"

He said, "Yes."

That's how the journey was started.

The fact that he's turned over 150

athletes athletes yearly and we do various events throughout the year.

- That is amazing.

And it's fun to hear that it's about the,

those that are in the chair.

I guess, so it's about those that are disabled,

trying to, I was reading a little bit about it

where it's trying to find a little normalcy,

I think is what it is.

- We all run and we're used to that,

but to be able to have that same feeling

being in a chair, it's gotta be amazing.

- Yeah.

- Go ahead, Kyle.

- No, Grant.

- No, I was just gonna say it's really always been about inclusion.

Like that was how we grew up.

I always, myself, my other brother Evan,

our parents, we were always all about including Kyle.

And that's really what the CalPee Foundation does.

And, you know, candidly, it's why we didn't have

a tennis tournament for many years

because we were actually short-sighted.

We thought, well, why would I do tennis

if it doesn't include Kyle?

If I can't get Kyle to play tennis,

then it's missing the mark of what we do.

And, board members like Justin,

who see the vision and the way that we include people

with disabilities said, here's another way to impact them.

Let's bring tennis players in.

They may not run and want to push a wheelchair.

Most of our events are designed around endurance sports.

So, you know, Justin has served,

as you mentioned on the board for four years,

Justin doesn't come out and push wheelchairs.

But what he does do is he brings his network out

on his friends and all of the greater, you know,

people within the community that believe in Kyle

and believe in Justin's work that we do here.

And it's given us the opportunity to help give away

another $30,000 a year to impact our family.

So, the message is inclusion.

What Kyle has been doing for the last 15 years is inclusion.

And it's just something we're all really proud to do

in tennis and pickle ball this tournament this year

is truly an extension of that mission and what we do.

Well, I'm excited about that opening up of ideas

because sure, you can, as a foundation,

generate revenue to help people doing anything.

You can have a dark tournament.

It shouldn't necessarily be the every event matters

when it comes to, it has to be what exactly we're working on.

In the tennis industry, we've got a similar scenario.

Not every foundation, not every nonprofit

needs to be tennis-related.

One of the reasons we're having this conversation,

which is, all right guys, this is a tennis event.

We know you guys are focused on endurance-type sports

and athletes.

But in this case, you don't have Kyle specifically

being a part of this tennis event

because I don't know that Kyle can play tennis.

But would you invite maybe next year's some wheelchair tennis?

Would that be a similar thing for this foundation?

Yeah, me, Brian.

Sorry, somebody was banging the door behind me.

Kyle's original vision for this

was to be a fully inclusive organization

in that any disability could be served through the Kyle Peace

foundation.

What has happened is that people see Kyle as this beacon.

He's talking to you from his third job today.

So he works.

He has a college degree and he runs a nonprofit.

And so people see that.

So the majority of the people we serve

have severe physical limitations.

And most of them can't do tennis or go

for some of the other vehicles we see nonprofits.

But that's not to say that we don't want to.

We, in fact, if somebody's out there listening

that's apparently the Paralympian, we would love to sponsor you.

We would love to talk to you about your journey.

And we'd love to have you out to this term

and to show our families what inclusion

can look like on a tennis court, on a pickleball court.

So we absolutely won't always be expanding that.

And it's why the mission's very ambiguous

to improve the lives of people with disabilities

through sports and beyond.

You know, the beyond piece is the grants, the job,

some of the other things that we're doing.

But the sports is what we've always been grounded in.

And I'll mention growing up a sports fan,

it's what you see playing out in this organization.

So we haven't figured out a good tennis joke for him yet.

He's got a great golf joke for our golf tournaments.

So if you guys could help us with some tennis humor,

maybe when we wrap up here today.

So we can give his opening remarks at the tennis tournament.

He can get a little chuckle from everybody.

I will stick Bobby on that because I am sure he can come up

with something to help us with that one.

Brent, I want you to expand on the grants

and what you guys do because it's one thing to run an event.

Justin's going to help run the horseshoe band, tennis,

and pickleball event.

But what do you do when this money comes in?

Where's that 30 grand go?

What does it do?

Yeah, so when we first started this,

we would meet these families.

They were so impacted by the sports.

They would start telling us their whole story.

And Tom, I just came away so inspired by what these families

were going through.

We're very fortunate in our lives that we

had the means and the ability to take care of Kyle

and to support him and to get him things

like wheelchair accessible bands and make his bathroom

accessible and just make his life livable.

And so we created what we call a universal grant program.

So anybody that's raised with us at any point

can apply for anything that they need.

And so we've renovated houses.

We've built ramps.

We've provided vehicles.

We've provided equipment, medical devices,

and scholarship dollars rent, everything under the sun.

And so we've made it very universal.

And Justin mentioned that originally the tennis tournament

enhanced those grants.

So when we first started, we built three grants.

And one was really big.

It gives away about $40, $45,000 a year.

And the other two were a little bit smaller.

And so the families were feeling restricted.

Well, I can't ask for the bathroom innovation.

And so the tennis tournament originally

was enhancing those.

And so the families would ask for these things that were

more expensive than the dollars we had available.

And then we said, don't worry about it.

We'll pay for the whole thing.

In fact, last year, I'll share the young man that won

the grants.

We built a wheelchair that goes over curbs

and goes off-road because he and his dad love doors.

And they brought it to a race.

And they drove it over a curb and threw the woods to show us.

And it was just such a cool experience

to know that this tennis tournament helped provide

this $15,000 piece of equipment.

Well, Justin's inspiration is now for the tennis tournament

to create its own standalone grant,

to do the exact same type of thing.

So $30,000 to impact a family for whatever they may need

in their life to just improve their lives as the mission states.

And that's really amazing.

And it's fun to have these conversations

because I'm sure Justin spends a lot of time.

And most of these boards are volunteer.

So there isn't a lot of paid nonprofit board members.

So this really is--

I'll go back to Justin a little bit.

This really is a--

Bobby likes to use the first Passion Project.

But it's more than that here.

There's a love for this that you really have.

Yeah, 100%.

I mean, I got involved with the foundation four years ago

because I went to one of the athlete celebrations

and what really inspired me was there was the gentleman

named Cecil.

And he won one of the grants.

And he was in a mobile wheelchair.

And he won this grant.

And he goes, this is amazing.

I can now buy a car and go anywhere.

And I was blown away because I have a car.

I can go wherever I want.

But some of these athletes don't have the means to it.

And that's kind of what inspired me to get involved.

And so with the tennis tournament,

we can now help these athletes one more time

because now we're even away a fourth grant.

So it's an amazing event.

It's an amazing foundation as well.

And so is there anything specific here

as we focus on trying to get our audience to understand?

Because our audience is used to nonprofit style events.

We understand foundations.

We understand how these things work.

But I think what people miss sometimes

is that the nonprofit doesn't always

have to be tennis specific.

And in this case, with this specific foundation,

it isn't necessarily going to some young kid to play tennis.

This is a different scenario.

This is tennis.

It was called, for the love of tennis,

I think is the event name of the--

Well, we love it.

The love of inclusion.

And for the love of inclusion is the reference.

OK, for the love of inclusion.

And in that case, we're playing tennis

to help the Kyle P's foundation, right, Brett?

Yeah, so the way I would think about it

is Justin just said it.

He met a young man that didn't have the means

to just get around in his own.

And so why not take-- what the foundation does--

so when Kyle and I do events, I push physically

push Kyle in a wheelchair.

And so what we always tell people is that Kyle borrows my legs,

but I've been to Kyle's spirit.

And so that's what tennis is.

You have a gift.

You are volunteers and our donors.

You have a physical gift to be able to play tennis,

something that maybe you do take for granted.

And so why don't you bring that gift,

come out and do something that you love

and share that gift with more people like Kyle?

Because just by simply doing something

that you're passionate about, you're

going to open doors for people like Kyle and Cecil

and Emanuel and Justin and Natalie and so many others

that didn't have that opportunity before.

So who knew that hitting a yellow tennis ball into or over

the net--

I'm the into the net guy to be clear--

could make such an impact.

And I commend Justin as a board member and friend

to the foundation and to Kotlin.

I'm for bringing that vision to and helping us understand

that we can impact people far beyond the finish line

through the things that we love.

Yeah, I think we are nearly on the head.

What does tennis tournament need to the Kyle Pete further?

Because if you were to brought this to us five years ago,

there wouldn't be no way that we could do this.

But because if body to us, you have to think in and eat

the execute and you don't have to be a runner

to the fear of love of the KTF family.

So just in a thing, I'm bringing that through tennis

and then to re-emain to be a part of it.

Yeah, I can imagine.

And like I said, we're used to this.

Justin, I believe, is filled out the application

for the GoTennis Foundation, where we as a foundation

help others, other nonprofits, connect with more tennis

events.

And I'd like to take this opportunity, I guess,

to say thank you to Brent and Kyle,

because you've made a good argument

that the nonprofit doesn't necessarily

have to be directly related to the tennis event

or whatever golf event, whatever it is.

And I guess a lot of those are a little bit obvious,

as I say it now, because there's the breast cancer awareness

event that we do in October that isn't necessarily directly

related to tennis, except that a lot of the tennis players

are in it because they know someone who is going through that.

And I think in this case, it might be more of a push.

If anybody in the area or our audience knows someone who is

disabled and would like help to be able to reach out

to this specific foundation, Brent, how

do we get in touch with--

how does our audience get in touch with the Kyle Peas

Foundation?

Not at pfoundation.org is our website,

and you can connect through everything

our social media, our newsletter, as well as all of our events.

And on our events page, you can also quickly

sign up for love of the inclusion before we sell out.

So all things KPZ live right there at KylePeasfoundation.org.

Easy to find.

I like it.

Justin, anything specific to this event,

do you sell out every year?

Is there really this?

There's only spots are going fast?

Or is that just a marketing ploy here?

Can we actually fill this thing up?

It's definitely not a marketing ploy.

We filled it up.

First year, we had 90 participants, close to 90.

And then the last year, we had to limit it to 80.

So this year, we will sell out because it's not

around any fall breaks or anything

of that nature.

So we will sell out.

We still have sponsorships available.

And then the doubles pairings are available right now

on the website.

OK.

And just so people have an idea, and some people

don't like to talk about money.

I'm not shy with things like that.

What does it cost to be a part of this thing?

Is it $500 a person?

Where are we?

Yeah, great question.

So a doubles pairing is $350 bucks.

That's for two people.

You get a prize bag, a raffle ticket, free booze,

included in the ticket as well.

And then you get to play tennis for a great cause.

We'll have some raffle items from Wilson and Babylon

and TechnoFiber and some of those tennis companies.

But yeah.

And then we do have sponsorships available.

We are looking for some pickleball sponsorships.

So if anyone's out there in the pickleball world,

connect with us.

And we love that view as a sponsor.

I'm sure we can figure that one out.

So I'm going to go higher article.

Kyle got anything else for us?

We're going to go and say that some of our athletes

will be out there.

That day as well as the way it will be good for people to see

what they're giving to and all that.

We're really excited and proud to be

part of the club.

I love it.

Awesome, Brent.

Kyle is to exercise as John McEnroe is to tennis.

So the language that you hear from Kyle on a race course

would be akin to listening to John McEnroe.

So maybe Kyle, that's the joke that we were missing.

No, I just-- I really appreciate the platform

to share about what we do.

There's so many worthy causes out there

in wonderful organizations like ours that are doing

really good work for wonderful people.

And so we really appreciate the platform

to share our message with your audience and with the tennis

world.

Absolutely.

Happy to help.

Justin won last invitation for the Horseshoe Bend event.

Give us the date, time, all that.

Yeah, October 24th this year, 9am.

Horseshoe Bend Country Club in Roswell.

I love it.

Gentlemen, thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

And it's good for everybody because we

get to share what we're doing.

We like to share good things.

And that's the kind of news we want to bring.

And this we believe as a good thing.

We know and love Horseshoe Bend, those of us that have been

in the area forever.

And our good friend is director of tennis over there.

We'll give a shout out to Arturo Nieto and tell him

we're coming for you in October, Arturo.

So he better be ready.

But Kyle, Grant, Justin, Bobby is always.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate your time.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, there you have it.

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