For the third straight year, Rally for Tennis will be back in New Jersey on August 19 from 5:30-9:00 p.m. at Centercourt Athletic Club of Chatham.

Rally for Tennis (RFT) is a non-profit organization that was established in 2021 by New England junior tennis players Alek Karagozyan, Tait Oberg, and Cole Oberg, whose mission is to help afford equal access to the sport of tennis to youth in underserved and underprivileged communities, making a difference in children’s lives.

RFT events currently run in the Garden State, Utah, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and have most recently expanded to college campuses such as Yale and Brown. RFT partners with local non-profit organizations that benefit under-resourced youth, and the N.J. fundraiser’s proceeds will once again go to Greater Newark Tennis and Education (GNTE).

This year’s edition in Chatham will consist of a free clinic including drills and fun games followed by dinner, prizes and a Q&A with the RFT Captains (Josh Mandelbaum, Andrew Kotozen, Ayanna Varma, Ethan Polen, Jean-Luc Marchand and Alexa Schonbraun) to learn more about their tennis experience and more.

The event will conclude with a raffle that is an extension of an ongoing online raffle.

Since its inception, RFT has raised over $180,000 from over 1,200 unique donors to support local community access to tennis for those in need.

Last August, the New Jersey event generated over $60,000 for the GNTE, a Newark-Based organization dedicated to providing tennis instruction to kids in Essex County and surrounding areas.

To donate, click here, and to check out the auction, click here.

For more information, visit rallyfortennis.com.

Contact Chris Nalwasky at cnalwasky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X at @ChrisNalwasky.

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Yordan Yordanov is spending his second summer in a row in New Jersey.“It will remain my second home for life,” he said. “Even though I’ve been here…overall, six months.”

Yordanov is from Bulgaria and has always wanted to see what life is like in America. He is in the United States on a J-1 visa, which allows overseas residents to enter the country on a work-study visitor exchange. He is one of 25 overseas students working at Playland’s Castaway Cove in Ocean City, New Jersey, this summer.

The boardwalk attraction employs 300 people overall during the summer tourist season. On any given year, Playland employs between 20-25 exchange visitors, according to Brian Hartley, vice president of the boardwalk attraction.

“We pretty much try to just keep it to that,” he said. “This way we can really make sure that they’re taken care of.”

Though COVID is still a pandemic, according to the World Health Organization, Hartley hopes life does not return to the early days of the public health emergency.

“We had a lot of kids who were afraid, parents were afraid for the kids to get a job, especially here,” he recalled, “you’re collecting tickets from people, you’re kind of touching them, people are sitting in seats, and someone else is sitting in it. We were going around washing them between every ride.

Playland also didn’t receive any overseas help in 2020.

The federal government under the Trump Administration suspended J-1 visas as it tried to limit the spread of COVID, according to the American Immigration Council.  Restrictions were eased the following year under the Biden Administration. However, there was a backlog in American embassies overseas.

Hartley said things have slowly returned to pre-pandemic levels.

“In 2021, I think we only have four or five [students,]” he said. Then it was a slow start getting going in 2022. A lot of the embassies were still closed for a while. But everyone now is really back into the full swing of things.”

A State Department spokesperson said that substantial improvements were made last year in reducing wait times across all visa categories.

For the last couple of years, the Alliance for International Exchange reported that more than 4,900 overseas students came to the U.S. for a summer work travel program.

Lisa Murray, director of the exchange program at the American Immigration Council, said she is also seeing a return to pre-pandemic activity in exchange programs.

“It’s taken us a few years to kind of get back up to our pre-COVID numbers. I would say that we are definitely there now.”

The secret to a long, healthy life is just 65 miles southwest of Manhattan.

Rural Hunterdon County in western New Jersey has been named the fourth-best community in the nation for health outcomes, a metric that takes into account the number of adults in poor health and life expectancy.

The rolling countryside that served as the backdrop for the sensational 1935 Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial ranks 35th overall in US News & World Report’s 2024 Healthiest Communities rankings.

It’s another feather in the cap of 129,000-strong Hunterdon, which recently placed No. 1 in New Jersey for life expectancy, with an average of 82.9 years. US life expectancy is 77.5 years.

“The open space, less densely developed area is a great asset to quality of life and less stress,” Hunterdon County Commissioner Director Jeff Kuhl crowed to The Post.

Kuhl — who represents the sixth generation of his family living on the same Hunterdon farmland — credits the county preserving around 38,000 acres of open space, offering free monthly health seminars for seniors and allowing local produce stands to proliferate for farm-to-table options.

The median sold home price in Hunterdon is $450,000, according to Realtor.com.

Besides Hunterdon, Morris County in New Jersey placed No. 16 on Tuesday’s healthiest communities list, while Nassau County was No. 29. Manhattan’s New York County lagged behind at No. 372.

Morris County Commissioner Director Christine Myers boasted about the county’s park system, top schools and access to premium healthcare.

“We invite everyone to come here, play a round of golf, go boating, swimming, hiking or biking; tour our farms, attend one of our many festivals, and shop our many local main streets,” Myers told The Post. “To visit us is to discover that Morris County is a refreshing breath of fresh air — literally, because we also annually rank as having some of the cleanest air in the nation.”

The top five US communities are Falls Church, Va., Los Alamos County, NM, Douglas County, Colo., Sioux County, Iowa, and Hamilton County, Ind.

US News crunched 92 health-related metrics such as environment, health care access, education, housing and public safety.