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Banjo didn’t know what the day held when he awoke Friday at the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA.

The smokey grey, year-and-a-half-old pit bull mix first arrived at the shelter on Berkmar Drive in July as a stray. He was soon adopted, but then returned in October – “not really a fault of his own,” said Marissa Marston, the SPCA’s social media manager.

You’d never guess his sad origin story last week if you saw him bound eagerly into an enclosure where a tub of tennis balls awaited.

Ava and Emily Samay collect donated tennis balls at �鶹�ƽ�� Sheridan Snyder Tennis Center. (Photo by Erin Edgerton, University Communications)

The story of how those tennis balls arrived at the shelter started four years ago in the tiny New Jersey borough of Mountain Lakes. Future University of Virginia student Emily Samay was then a freshman on the Mountain Lakes High School tennis team. Something troubled her.

“We can’t really use tennis balls that often,” she said. “You have to throw them away after you use them because the life of a tennis ball, they die pretty quickly.” 

If you’ve ever walked by a tennis court, chances are you have seen discarded balls. Not only that, it takes 400 years for a single tennis ball to decompose. And each year, 125 million tennis balls are dumped in landfills in the United States. 

Samay learned those facts when she started looking more deeply into the problem. Her concern turned to passion.

Aces for Earth

Samay came up with an ace. She discovered a nonprofit in Vermont, RecycleBalls, that sells cylindrical bins you can affix to fences surrounding tennis courts. Once a player’s ball is spent, they can simply drop it into the bin. The contents are then sent north to be shredded and recycled into tennis courts, horse footing and playground equipment. 

She ,” to collect and ship the used balls, and got it up and running at her school and area tennis courts with the help of a GoFundMe campaign.

The Samay siblings have helped UVA recycle 6,000 tennis balls. It takes 400 years for a single tennis ball to decompose. (Photo by Erin Edgerton, University Communications)

Emily’s older sister, Ava, a fourth-year student at UVA, thought the University was a natural fit for Aces for Earth and launched the program in August 2022, with bins at the Sheridan Snyder Tennis Center, the Boar’s Head Sports Club, St. Anne’s Belfield School and local fitness club ACAC.

The trouble was the GoFundMe money was running low, and Ava was doing all the work herself. She needed help.

She turned to President Jim Ryan for ideas. They met in his office in Madison Hall. “I was all dressed up. He was so nice and it was very casual,” she said. “He just wanted to hear about the idea and he thought it was a great idea.” 

Ryan suggested she contact and soon Aces for Earth was partnered with the outlet’s Green Athletics group to increase student support of the initiative. 

Banjo was overjoyed by all the free toys the sisters delivered to the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA. (Photo by Erin Edgerton, University Communications)

“UVA is really a student-centered University, where if a student has an idea, the staff and faculty get behind it. And in this case, President Ryan,” said Teri Strother, a communicator in the sustainability office. “It’s really cool to see.” 

To date, Aces for Earth at UVA has recycled 6,000 tennis balls.

Just last month, the sustainability office reached out to the local SPCA to see if the shelter could use some tennis balls. The answer was “yes.” 

This is where Banjo comes back into the picture.

Ava and Emily Samay brought him, and all the doggies at the shelter, piles of neon yellow bouncing orbs, and it was on like Donkey Kong.