ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – On July 31 the Roanoke Police Department’s RESET Team celebrated the opening of the new Champions of Change Boxing Program.
“The goal is to allow youth and young adults a safe space to come out and work out, to get rid of some of this stored up, pent up energy,” RESET Coordinator Lloyd Merchant said.
The project. years in the making, finally taking off.
“Inspiration came several years ago, talking to one of the coaches, one of the local coaches. He had an idea about, let’s go in and see if we can have a space for boxing,” Merchant said. “So we actually started out in the YMCA, where we would go down there one night a week and practice in their space, and it eventually evolved to this.”
The program is an escape from the dangers some of the participants face in the city.
“We help kids to stay out of bad situations, getting to gang related stuff or doing bad things in the street,” program participant Keith Moore said. “So if you have an activity to do, keep your mind in the right place. People in the gym will give you the right advice, what to do, just lead you down the right path. ”
Many of the mentors at Champions Boxing know what the kids have to deal with outside the boxing ring, and do their best to lead them away from the violence.
“It looks like with all the gun violence in Roanoke City, we need an answer, and all people can do is one kid at a time. All I can do is what’s around me,” Mentor Everett Sawin said. “I don’t have some big solution, but I know if you go out there and you help all that you have the influence over, and you can do everything in your power to help it, I think we’ll all be in a better position.”
The mentors become more than just another trainer.
“They’re like a father figure in some sort of way, teaching me what to do right, what not to do. Another father figure in my life, and I really appreciate that,” Moore said.
“We try to be a family here. A lot of these kids, they just need people to talk to. A lot of them, they’re on their phones all the time, they got nobody to talk to, or they got problems going on, they don’t want to share with anybody.”
The opening marks the beginning of the program, but Merchant has bigger goals for the gym.
“We’re hoping to grow so we can open up more, to include maybe the weekend or Saturday, because we want to invite those individuals that may be out here challenged with risk factors that they deal with on a daily, weekly basis, and we want them to come here to a safe space.”
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