In 2008, Michelle caught wind of the fact that there were a great number of disadvantaged, state-funded schools in Cape Town’s CBD, that desperately needed support in inspiring young minds to stay in school, and with support, work towards better futures.
The Growing Sports Foundation Trust, founded in 2008 by entrepreneur Michelle Whitehead, was built as a tribute and give-back project. Michelle, who professionally trained as a Kindergarten teacher after school, understands the affinity between child development and learning a sport.
“In 2008 I wanted to give back for my business, Mountain Manor Guest House. I was very involved with tennis in the Western Province at the time, and I chose to go into schools and teach tennis to scholars with little access to it. Unbeknown to me, when I arrived at the schools that had shown interest in school sports programs, the condition of the children was so poor that I had to make a strategic plan on how I could get the children to a better physical space, where I could implement an athletic development programme. First, I had to teach the children how to find their own personal space, how to stand, how to run, how to jump, and how to do basic ball skills before we could envisage putting rackets in their hands or putting them on a tennis court.
At this time, some 17,000 children were bused in from the townships every day to the schools in Cape Town’s CBD. On top of the lack of resources, the children being tired and hungry, they were also in non-community schools. The headmasters had very little contact with the parents, and these parents could not even contribute with school fees. There are still many areas that schools could use assistance with, not just Cape Town CBD.

Six schools signed up the Growing Sports Foundation Trust Programme and gave us their Life Orientations period, a mandatory subject for all schools in the country. As we began our Programmes, we trained 5 coaches to become the ‘Heroes’ for these little learners. We found that in ‘give-back’ programs, it was and still very much is, important to create ‘Heroes’ who can share cultural backgrounds, and potentially even mother tongues with our Scholars.
We created the Growing Sports Foundation with 3 steps, The HOPE Programme, focusing on Grassroots Development, the PRIDE Programme focusing on Individual Empowerment and the VICTORY Programme as being integral in inspiring our Scholars to reach for Professional Opportunities, in sport, academics or after school apprenticeships.
In step 1, we focused on Athletic Development. Here we taught the children to find their own personal space and to stand tall. We taught them mathematics, colour and number skills with small competitive games so that they were taught drive, to win and determination. We taught them hand-eye coordination, handball skills, gross motor coordination, and most of all, we enabled the children to laugh, have fun and experience the joys of playing with basic toys like a ball or a hula hoop. We did this 5, sometimes 6 days a week and our team of 6 created an impact, way beyond just sports.
With successful collaborative partnerships, we were able to assist schools in many different ways.
The Waterfront Rotary Club contributed towards buying equipment for the schools and developing Libraries in the schools, and the German school in Cape Town assisted by getting funding and collaborating with the Grade 7 learners at Walmer Estate Primary in creating a playground for the children to be able to have fun in during break times.
The University of Cape Town students became a preferred operator for “their doing good projects”. Together we created an annual Sports Day at UCT. These hugely exciting days, transported the learners from all the schools we taught at to the UCT campus for a day of sports, fun and excitement AND playing on REAL tennis courts.

On Saturday mornings, Cape Town High School very kindly loaned us their three tennis courts. Thanks to the Amy Foundation, we were able to make use of their bus to transport interested children into the city for Tennis Coaching with us. One Saturday, the Amy Foundation bus was broken, and the children couldn’t come. As we were packing up at midday, in walked this little 9-year-old boy who had walked from Gugulethu, about 20+km into Cape Town, alongside the highway. He wanted to play his tennis, no matter what. This act by this child made us realise how important the impact of this programme was having on these children.
We won a few local awards for doing good in the community, which resulted in gaining funding from the National Lotto through the Tennis South Africa development program. For two years, we received R14,000 per month, which paid for the monthly salaries of five Sports Coaches and a Head Coordinator.. At one stage we had over 3000 children doing Athletic Development in our Programmes and playing tennis on broken up gravel. There were no facilities and to date, there are still no facilities, but these children were none the wiser, as they thoroughly enjoyed chasing the balls that had bounced skew.

After the Lotto funding ceased, my business Mountain Manor, personally funded the program for another year and thereafter we were just unable to keep up without having funds. The schools were unable to contribute towards the coaches and we were forced to stop the program in 2017. Since then the schools have been crying out for the GSFT Programmes to start again as it had had such a positive impact on their Scholars.
During COVID, whilst in the supermarket, a young girl tapped me on the shoulder and asked “Aren’t you Michelle?” and when I answered her “Yes”, she said “Don’t you remember me? You taught us tennis at Rahmaniyeh Primary. We loved it so much. Where can we go to play?” Well, that brought instant tears to my eyes, and once again the impact that this programme has had, is expressed through everyone who was a part of it.
Experience is showing that we need ample funds to be able to train coaches with coaching skills whilst developing personal skills of integrity and leadership. The last couple of years have been really tough for everybody in trying to keep their businesses afloat. At this time, two of my coaches have sadly passed away due to violence in the townships where they lived, and we now need to train a new team of Sports Trainers. Being seen as, and becoming a “Hero” in the eyes of a child is a huge responsibility. It is a priority for us that our Sports Trainers have the capability of this type of leadership for the youth, and so naturally, investing into proper certified training is both a chance at a new career path for our Trainers and deeply important to our team.
The GSFT team has now expanded and we are thrilled to have new Board Members and Fundraisers on board. We have a goal to train 12 new Sports Trainers in the latter half of 2025. We are hoping to get back into schools in 2026 and to focus on developing longevity in the partnerships with our schools, through fundraising for a 3 year cycle, 2025 to 2027.
Leadership, integrity, competitiveness, discipline and manners are all social skills that are developed during our classes as well as friendship, fairness, and the desire to do better. These are attributes that sports people carry throughout their lives and we cannot wait to develop young minds and create pathways through our networks again.
I am very excited to be ending 2023 on this positive note again, and we are asking everyone who has an interest to know more, donate financially, through their time or through equipment, to reach out so we can discuss your involvement further.
Here’s to a new chapter!
Michelle