AURORA, Colo. — The life of a firefighter can be so unpredictable in the day-to-day, but if there’s one thing that the crew at Aurora Fire Station 16 can count on, it’s their daily game of Pepper Pong.
You might be wondering... What exactly is Pepper Pong?
It’s like mini pickleball. And a great stress reliever, said Lt. Mitchell Harr.
“[On] one of my random scrollings on Facebook, I saw this game called Pepper Pong,” he laughed.
One impulse buy later, the fun times at Fire Station 16 got started.
“I bring this into the firehouse, and I show it to the guys. These guys were so excited,” Harr recalled.
Little did he know the fire station’s favorite game was the brainchild of Denver resident Tom Filippini.
“It turns out that Mitch is a very close friend of a close friend of mine, and they made the connection,” Filippini told Denver7.
On the day we met Harr and Filippini, there was a friendly rivalry going on.
“I vowed to come out and challenge Mitch, who claims that he's really good at Pepper Pong,” Filippini laughed.
But beyond what Filippini calls a "gort" — three-quarters sport, one-quarter game, he said — there’s a deeper meaning to Pepper Pong.
It all goes back to 2016.
“I became sober. I had been battling addiction and alcoholism,” Filippini recalled. “I was actually at a recovery facility, and they had a ping pong table. Just the hitting back and forth during that time took my mind off of what I was dealing with.”
That’s where the idea for Pepper Pong took off.
“What this game does is it brings people together, no matter where they are, and it fosters good, old-fashioned human connection, which I believe is a major step forward to reducing the isolation that often manifests itself in the form of some type of addiction,” he said.
The idea might have turned Filippini into an entrepreneur, but at the core of it all, he said it’s about giving back.
“We really want to get these in the hands of people that that are dealing with some type of struggle, whether it's mental health-related, addiction-related,” he said.
His mission now? Donating Pepper Pong sets to recovery centers and to first responders, like the people at Aurora Fire Station 16.
“When the four of us are playing this game after dinner at the dinner table… We're not thinking about that bad call that we had, we're not thinking about the calls that we've had in the past. We're just concentrating on beating one another, and it really is the camaraderie, the teamwork,” Harr said.
So, while this particular occasion might be a friendly competition to win some Pepper Pong swag, it's joy, community and healing that’s the real prize here.
‘’Best impulse purchase ever,’’ Harr laughed.
Denver7 is committed to making a difference in our community by standing up for what's right, listening, lending a helping hand and following through on promises. See that work in action, in the videos above.