Tennis Court Lighting and Pickleball Courts Successfully Funded Share

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With sup­port of the Grant Coun­ty Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion and local com­mu­ni­ty, the Mar­i­on Parks & Recre­ation Depart­ment has suc­cess­ful­ly raised funds need­ed to put in ten­nis court light­ing and pick­le­ball courts in Marion. 

The effort was dri­ven by Parks & Recre­ation Direc­tor of Pro­gram­ming & Events, Julie Fauser. ​“I love to see the com­mu­ni­ty come togeth­er to bring qual­i­ty-of-life improve­ments to Mar­i­on. I’m excit­ed that we can run more tour­na­ments and leagues, and be able to enjoy both pick­le­ball and ten­nis courts day and night,” expressed Fauser.

The Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion had select­ed Parks & Recre­ation as one of four groups that got to par­tic­i­pate in a crowd­fund­ing match pro­gram. Fauser had two months to raise funds for the project. She raised $39,192, exceed­ing the max­i­mum match dol­lars of $20,000 from the Foun­da­tion, bring­ing total project fund­ing to $59,192.

In her crowd­fund­ing efforts, a notably gen­er­ous dona­tion was giv­en through a trust of the late Jules Walk­er, the founder of MHS’s ten­nis pro­gram, coach, and hall-of-famer. Walk­er was instru­men­tal in bring­ing the first ten­nis courts to Mar­i­on in the 1950s. The City of Mar­i­on sin­cere­ly thanks Walker’s exec­u­tive team for the gra­cious gift, as well as gen­er­ous dona­tions received from: Atlas Foundry Foun­da­tion, Inc; James R. Sut­ter Revo­ca­ble Trust; Tripp Gor­man Com­mu­ni­ty Impact Fund; Mar­i­on Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal; Drs. Shankaran & Devase­na Srikanth; Insur­ance Man­age­ment Group; McCoy Prop­er­ty Man­age­ment; Bea­con Cred­it Union; Rick Hiatt; Mar­i­on Tire, Inc.; Venu G., Kumar, & Dr. Supriya S. Odd­i­ra­ju; Kavi­ta, Seh­gal & Shiv K. Raj; Mar­tin Plumb­ing, Heat­ing, & A/C, Inc.; Mike & Karen Roor­bach; Lana Glick­field; Robert Lucas; Ter­ry R. Porter; Nage­sha Anji­nap­pa; Dr. JitendraI. Patel, M.D. & Niru­pa­ma J. Patel; Albert C. Hark­er; Mark & Hope Spitzer; William L. & Jan M. Beek­man; PAS of Indi­ana dba New Haven Tan; Dr. Mon­i­ca Raj­maira; Tim & Mary Eck­er­le; Jes­si­ca O’Neal; and Vern E. & Christi­na Lynn Rum­ple. The City also salutes the in-kind sup­port received from Indi­ana Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty; Jim Swan with Mar­i­on Steel; Rex Collins Elec­tric, Inc.; IMI; and Kyle’s MAB Paints.

May­or Jess Alum­baugh grate­ful­ly expressed, ​“This is a per­fect exam­ple of what can be accom­plished when the com­mu­ni­ty comes togeth­er for a wor­thy cause.”

Fauser said they hope to have the six pick­le­ball courts in place behind the exist­ing ten­nis courts com­plete with over­all light­ing by the fall.

Pick­le­ball is a pad­dle sport com­bin­ing ele­ments of ten­nis, bad­minton, and ping-pong. Learn more at www​.usapa​.org.

The announce­ment of all local efforts fund­ed through the Com­mu­ni­ty Foundation’s first crowd­fund­ing match pro­gram is found in their press release, attached.