WAIPAHU — It makes more sense if you think of adopting a park on a volunteer basis in tennis terms.

The serve-and-volleyers are the folks out front with weed whackers and power mowers. The baseliners stay back, raking, bagging and blowing away what the volleyers leave behind.

There are even the inevitable junk ballers, who construct the clean-up plan and finish it off with finicky shots no one else wants to take — pulling 4-foot weeds, trimming trees and hibiscus, finishing off hedges.

Having the USTA's Hawai'i Pacific Section adopt the Patsy T. Mink Central O'ahu Regional Park tennis complex makes even more sense if you envision the 20-court setting — or pretty much any other venue at the 360-acre city and county park — without volunteer help.

Think overgrown jungle, graffiti and other eyesores at a site created for the community, with state-of-the-art venues capable of hosting national and international events. Glenn Kajiwara, who oversees CORP as District V Manager for the Department of Parks and Recreation, freely admits he doesn't have the staff to cope with the massive park.

"We appreciate everybody's help," Kajiwara said. "It's just too much for our grounds crew."

Baseball, softball, swimming and other volunteer groups have pitched in. The Waikele Community Association donated 150 hibiscus plants to hide a wall that had become a target of taggers.

The Hawai'i Pacific Section officially adopted the tennis complex more than a year ago. The commitment is for "light" landscaping and maintenance. It took one painful lesson in April to alter the definition of "light."

"We feel like we have to keep on top of it because if we don't do it every two months it's back-breaking," said Madeleine Dreith, the HPS Tennis Service Representative who organizes the outings. "In April we came and the weeds were so high it took us two or three days. Then we decided we had to come every other month."

The organization hosts large-scale tournaments at CORP nearly every other week at certain points of the year. It realized last year that the complex simply wasn't "presentable" and took matters into its own hands, now swollen and sore after the latest "work party" in June.

"The Department of Parks and Recreation was having trouble keeping up with it," Dreith said. "The park is huge. They let us have these major events and we don't pay for court time so we'll take that responsibility. We've got pride in it. ... It's our way of giving back."

Last month "pride" turned into four hours of hard labor by 16 volunteers, ranging in age from 13 to 60-something. Most of the HPS staff was there, along with top-ranked junior Matt Westmoreland, one state worker who plays at CORP and took a vacation day to help, two juniors doing community service as a "warmup" for a mission trip to Japan where they will help clear trails, a father and son, and assorted junior and adult league and recreational players.

With a briefing that grows more thorough by the bi-monthly work party, a mountain of mulch provided by the city in a new effort to suffocate weeds, a little relentlessness and an earlier return to the scene of the overgrowth, what took three days in April was finished in four hours.

Dreith advertised the outing as "light duty shrub/weed maintenance," but that could be construed as misleading. About 50 trash bags full of green garbage were cleared from the areas surrounding the courts (the main lawn is maintained by the city).

The "serve-and-volleyers" cleared wide swaths around fences and corners that sent thousands of roaches scurrying. The "baseliners" raked, bagged and dragged long and hard enough that the red dirt will never come out of their socks. And the junk ballers put on the finishing touches, accompanied by one CORP regular there to pluck plumeria.

"Honestly," USTA/HPS executive director Ron Romano said, "the city doesn't have enough money to keep all the parks up. Especially not this one, which is the showcase for tennis. That's why we adopted it."

That, and an affinity for Hawai'i Tennis Hall of Famer Don Andrews, tennis specialist for the city and county now based at CORP after years at Diamond Head. While others rubbed sore arms, legs, hands and feet and tried to find the best way — any way — to get the red dirt out last week, Andrews was beaming.

"What a huge difference," the 82-year-old said. "It looked like a jungle before. This is terrific."

At least until next month.