by Ashley Attanucci
Staff Writer
Video by Liz Meyer and Chloe Lanier

“We’ve got Jack’s back” read the Styrofoam cups in the fence of the tennis courts, advertising the CHS tennis team’s Serve-A-Thon fundraiser. The Serve-A-Thon took place Wednesday, Jan. 27 throughout the day in honor of Jack’s Closet and its founder, CMSW 7th grader and tennis player Jack Barker.

JV, varsity and middle school tennis teams united to earn pledges or flat donations from the community. Each player received a pledged amount of money for every one out of 100 serves they made, earning a total of over $7,500 for Jack’s Closet, a foundation dedicated to collecting Snuggies for cancer patients. Jack’s Closet was started after Barker was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in September last year.

“Jack Barker is on the tennis team and wants to join the high school tennis team so we thought as a tennis community we could support him and his fight against cancer,” CHS varsity tennis player Drew Hasson said.

Barker has been playing tennis since age 5 and has attended CHS head tennis coach Jane Jackson’s summer tennis camps for as long as she can remember.

“He’s worked really hard to try to buy as many Snuggies as he can for his closet and also to have one in the hands of every single patient in the hospital,” Jackson said.

Tennis players felt more of a correlation with Barker beyond his hobby of tennis.

“I feel really good that we can help out of one of our own, because Jack goes to Coppell West and is a tennis player so he’s pretty much one of us,” Varsity captain and former West student Shruthi Rajashekar said.

Rajashekar’s eighth grade brother, Karthik, also participated in the program.
“My brother said [that he] couldn’t imagine someone my age being in the hospital for leukemia and felt compelled to help,” Rajashekar said.

The tennis teams hope to raise even more money this weekend through flat donations.

“As of today (Wednesday) we’re looking at about approximately 7,000 and we’re hoping that it will grow throughout the weekend. We’ll turn in our money hopefully on Monday,” Jackson said.

Jack and his mother Giora Barker attended the Serve-A-Thon after school.

“The support of friends and family and the community has been amazing and has really helped us get through it. It’s been wonderful. We’ve raised over 15,000 (dollars) [for Jack’s Closet] so far and [it’s] been really successful today here at the high school doing the Serve-A-Thon, we’ve done pretty well,” Giora Barker said.