It was only a matter of time before tennis became a focal point for the Teens Rise Foundation. What started as a nonprofit dedicated to pursuing education equity and providing underserved youth with academic opportunities quickly evolved into one of the fastest growing tennis and education nonprofits in the country.

Tennis has fast become one of the major focuses and top priorities for Gaby Millán, the Teens Rise Foundation’s Executive Director. She’s held that position since 2021 for the foundation that started in 2018 in the South Bay area of San Diego, where Millán grew up.

Millán said her work in the South Bay quickly revealed there were “little to no tennis courts” available for children in the area, located just a few miles from the Tijuana border. And what makes that most disheartening, Millán said, is the fact that no pathway exists to expose youth during elementary and middle school to the sport of tennis.

“We realized that tennis was not an active sport in the middle school or elementary schools but that every high school in the South Bay had a tennis team,” Millán said. “We thought that was quite bizarre that you would have students who might not have ever picked up a racket but then being offered a sport in high school they knew nothing about.”

So Millán made it her mission to have the Teens Rise Foundation bring tennis programming into the elementary and middle schools to expose the sport to an area she said is “99 percent Latino.”

“We currently offer tennis and academic support to eight middle and three elementary schools across three different school districts in the South Bay,” Millán said. “And it’s because the students showed a genuine interest that they now have access to tennis.”

Millán did say the foundation operates differently than other NJTL programs because of the lack of a central facility with tennis courts. Instead, Millán shared, they work directly with schools to offer tennis programming on school campuses during and after school.

Millán works closely with the coaches and school leaders to get creative with the tennis programming. “We’re talking blacktop and portable tennis nets,” she said. “Also, because transportation is an issue, we offer tennis right after school. It’s a unique challenge to tackle, but we better address students’ needs by activating the programs where they are and not expecting them to get anywhere.”

Numerous big names in tennis, including legendary Angel Lopez, have reached out to Millán to support her efforts to expand tennis in the South Bay. He’s provided shirts, nets, and equipment to ensure youth have what they need to access the sport equitably.

Millán said one of the middle schools does have eight tennis courts, and they are working actively to get funding to fix cracks on the courts, install lighting to expand programming hours, and replace the chain nets.

41-year-old Millán is the youngest of eight children and was the first in her family to go directly to a four-year school, attending Cal Poly Pomona after graduating from University City High School in San Diego.

“I was a commuter kid from South County San Diego,” said Millán, who also has a Masters in Business Administration. “A lot of the people in my neighborhood lived below the poverty line, but I was fortunate to be given an opportunity to attend a school where it’s more common for students to go on to college than not to.”

In 2012, Millán said she felt the non-profit sector “calling my name” and that she wanted to return to the area where she grew up to serve.

She was working as the Executive Director for the YMCA of San Diego County when the Board of Directors at Teens Rise Foundation came calling in August of 2021 with an offer for Millán to run the foundation.

Millán shared that one of the favorite things about her job is seeing young students experience tennis for the first time. “Tennis is just not something they know much about,” she said. “And we make it very clear to them that tennis is a very disciplined sport, and it’s not easy to just step in and rally. But we’ve been fortunate to work with some great certified coaches and once they get to a space where they can rally and gain some points, that’s where the retention starts to come in.”

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For more information visit www.teensrise.org.