Sartell Police’s Teen Pickleball Challenge Aims To Build Bonds

SARTELL (WJON News) -- Sartell students can learn to play pickleball and get to interact with local police officers on Friday. The Sartell Police Department is hosting the first Teen Pickleball Showdown at the Sartell Community Center for teenagers grades 6 through 12.

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High School Resource Officer Rob Lyon says they are trying to find ways for the police to build relationships with area teens:

"Our community ed director at Sartell is trying to think of different ways to get more teenagers interacted with the police department because we also do, like in the summer we do PAL, that's for the younger kids, we do a bike rodeo for the younger kids so we're trying to get more activities to get the teens engaged with the police department."

Lyon says the program is a collaboration with Sartell Community Ed and they hope to have more teen-related events in the future. He says they will have equipment on hand for everyone to use and no experience is necessary:

"Some of our officers are pretty diehard pickleball players so they may help teach some of the kids how to play pickleball. We will be there just to interact with the kids, we may play on the same team, we may play against them there is no set format at this point."

The event is free to attend, and online registration is encouraged but teens can just show up the night of the event too. The Teen Pickleball Showdown takes place from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

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