{"id":336145,"date":"2026-07-10T20:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T20:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/336145\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T20:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T20:29:18","slug":"a-tampa-bay-area-pickleball-pro-started-a-nonprofit-to-help-other-athletes-overcome-injuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/336145\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tampa Bay area pickleball pro started a nonprofit to help other athletes overcome injuries"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Victoria
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVictoria and Valerie Simon of Serve for Strength. By Se\u00e1n Kinane (2026).<\/p>\n

A local pickleball professional is using what could have been a career-ending injury to help other athletes in similar situations to recover.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Valerie Simon is a PPA athlete. She founded a foundation called Serve for Strength with the help of my family after major bone surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I have 4 titanium rods in my body, 2 in each ankle, and I want to help as many people as possible,\u201d Simon said. \u201cWe\u2019ve started this, we\u2019re officially 501(c)(3) in January now, and we\u2019ve, we\u2019ve done a couple of pickleball fundraisers and raising money for medical research to help prevent all these surgeries and to try and help all people of all ages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Serve for Strength<\/a> puts on fundraisers and awareness events with the help of Valerie\u2019s younger sister, PPA signed pro Victoria, and her mother, Daniella.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started playing pickleball when I couldn\u2019t really walk. I was just starting to get back into like being normal again, starting to get back on my feet,\u201d said Valerie Simon. \u201cSo the community kind of brought me into it. I met so many nice people that just believed to be my journey and it started as well pickleball for me started as physical therapy. So it was nice to meet so many nice people that helped me get along with my journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

In October, they\u2019re holding a pickleball clinic<\/a> in Riviera Maya, Mexico.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victoria and Valerie Simon of Serve for Strength. By Se\u00e1n Kinane (2026). A local pickleball professional is using…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[25082,7873,110,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-336145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-blog","tag-pickleball","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}