For 24 years, tennis players from Mercer County and beyond have hit the courts to support the SERV Foundation’s annual Volley For SERV Tennis Tournament.
This year, 72 players participated in five doubles divisions and a singles pro exhibition at the Cherry Valley Country Club in Skillman June 16.
These players, along with additional reception guests and sponsors, helped raise $36,400 to support SERV (Social, Educational, Residential and Vocational) Behavioral Health System’s consumers throughout New Jersey who are recovering from severe mental illness or coping with developmental disabilities. Funds raised at this event help finance the Scholarship Fund for consumers, the annual Recovery NJ health-and-wellness event for consumers and their families, as well as other projects of the foundation.
The evening reception featured food, live entertainment, silent and live auctions, and the drawing for the Super 50/50 Cash Raffle.
The guest speaker for the evening was Bettie K., a consumer with SERV Centers of New Jersey. A two-time SERV Foundation scholarship recipient, Bettie spoke eloquently about her recovery from mental illness and thanked donors for supporting the Scholarship Fund.
“After a few months with SERV, I felt more in control of my life and I decided it was time to go back to school and finish what I started, (but) I worried about how I would pay for school,” Bettie said at the event. SERV’s scholarships helped her pay for tuition, books, transportation and other college-related expenses.
Bettie currently attends Berkeley College in Newark, where she is working toward an associate’s degree in medical billing and coding. She is expected to graduate in the spring.
SERV also presented two awards that evening, one to a board member and another to a Volley For SERV (VFS) tennis player.
Ivan Punchatz, Esq. of Yardley, Pa., received The SERVice Award, an honor presented annually to a past or current SERV board member. Punchatz, a shareholder with Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney, PC in Princeton, marks 25 years of serving on the boards of SERV Behavioral Health System.
Gwen Guidice, executive director of the Princeton Tennis Program for the past 19 years, received the fourth annual Lou Natale Jr. Players Award. This award acknowledges an individual for continual support of SERV through participation in and sponsorship of Volley For SERV. Guidice, a resident of Hillsborough, began playing in VFS in the A Division in 1997.
In addition to the special awards given, tennis tournament champions and finalists received awards from VFS Committee Chairman Ted Golfinopoulos.
The evening was capped off with the drawing of the Super 50/50 Cash Raffle, which raised $16,750. First-prize winners, Kyle and Paulina Hammerschmidt of Yardley, Pa., won $6,700, 40 percent of total raised. Second-prize winner was Jeannette Bennett of Trenton, who won $1,675.
SERV Behavioral Health System Inc. is a private, nonprofit organization serving adults and youth throughout the state with serious mental illnesses and developmental disabilities. Founded in 1974, SERV provides residential and support services in Burlington, Hudson, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset and Union counties.
More information is online at servbhs.org
Paulina Hammerschmidt (Yardley, Pa.) and her daughter Olivia accept a check for $6,700 from SERV vice president of community relations Keith V. Hamilton, after winning first prize in the Super 50/50 Cash Raffle on June 16.,
