FAMU alumnus named USTA Florida Volunteer of the Month

The Florida division of the United States Tennis Association has named FAMU alumnus Jerrell Lowery its “Volunteer of the Month.”

Lowery has spent the last five years connecting his tennis foundation and the university's varsity players in assisting at-risk inner-city youth in Tallahassee.

The executive director of the Venom Foundation (named as a take-off of the Florida A&M "Rattlers" mascot) for the past five years, Lowery turned lemons into lemonade when a proposed high school tennis team for FAMU's D.R.S. (Developmental Research School, a "laboratory school" for teaching and learning) fell through roughly five years ago.

"We started Venom as a fundraising booster club for FAMU's D.R.S., but it never materialized," he said. "There was a local tennis club, no longer in operation, that I retained membership with that had started to teach 10 and Under Tennis, but stopped. We then decided to turn Venom into a 501(c)(3) foundation, to serve the under-privileged kids with nutrition and fitness education, using tennis as our medium."

Like other successful after-school tennis programs, it stresses homework assistance through tutoring, mentoring and the use of computer labs; nutrition education to promote healthy lifestyles and combat obesity; life skills, and tennis instruction and team play.

Unlike other after-school programs, the Venom Foundation incorporates FAMU's men's and women's players as volunteers and role models for kids in the program.

"Since its beginning we have set up teaching programs that are active three days a week," said Lowery of the program days on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. "We are located on the campus of FAMU so that the men's and women's tennis teams don't have to travel far to volunteer with teaching the kids, students, and adults. And by doing so they can earn a scholarship, or the opportunity to become a certified tennis instructor."

The foundations supports itself with fundraisers and events that also benefit charities. Its big annual fundraising event is the Maggie Coffey Annual Memorial Tournament in Tallahassee, and during the month of October (Oct. 21 this year) a "Pink Out Day" is hosted at the FAMU tennis courts to recognize Breast Cancer Awareness Month and raise funds.

Lowery, in addition to overseeing the Venom Foundation, is also a board member for the Tallahassee Police Athletic League and the Rainbow Tennis League, and was recently certified by the PTR to teach 11-17 year olds.

"As our program offers sessions for all ages, I never know which of the participants I will be instructing, so I wanted to have the proper structure for each," he says.

For more information about the Venom Foundation, visit here.