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A love for tennis was sparked early on for brothers Spencer and Marshall Mackoff. First introduced to the sport in public parks as young children by their mother, they began playing more seriously at UBC tennis camps. Eventually becoming coaches themselves, they founded Summer Smash Tennis together in 2012 – and haven’t looked back. Operating year-round today, Summer Smash Tennis teaches some 2,000 students annually through community centres, schools and First Nations. Spencer, drawing from his varsity

Don’t tell Jan Cooper that you can’t sing. “Singing is within all of us. Some people are natural and others need to be trained. If you can speak, you can sing,” says Cooper, a vocal coach with 40 years’ experience. Introducing his vocal training programs to the Kerrisdale Community Centre this year, Cooper brings a variety of musical and theatrical experience to the classroom. He got his break during the production of Godspell at the

As a shy child, Jessica Wampler discovered the power and magic of music. “I found through music I was able to express myself in ways I was too shy to do in my daily life,” says Wampler. “I felt the magic that music can bring, whether singing alone at home or finding the courage to somehow perform in front of a live audience.” Today, the West Side Music Together teacher helps babies and children up to

He has a master’s degree in computer science, and he’s worked as an Apple software engineer and UBC quality assurance team lead. Yet Nikhil Naidu’s career highlight stems from one small but moving moment while he was teaching. As director of Wize Computing Academy (Vancouver, Richmond and Burnaby), Naidu fondly recalls when one of his students created their very first game from scratch. “It was a simple project, but the pride they felt and the excitement they