“It saved my life”: Allentown nonprofit boxing gym needs help

Every day in the late afternoon to early evening, several dozen kids and young adults gather at an Allentown boxing gym to train and spar.

Under the watch of boxing coach and youth mentor Paul Pinnock, the boxers receive an outlet for their emotions and a place where they are seen, heard and understood.

That is why Pinnock founded Lehigh Valley Pound 4 Pound boxing gym in 2018 on Walnut Street, where he coaches dozens of budding athletes, transports them to and from competitions, and serves as a mentor to boys and young men that may not have anywhere else to turn for a role model like him.

The nonprofit gym’s mission is more relevant than ever in the wake of a pair of Allentown shootings that left two teenagers dead, advocates said. Following the two killings, city officials and activists called for more resources to prevent such gun violence, including mental health support and youth programs.

But the organization now faces an existential threat, as mounting financial struggles could force it to close in the near future without a fundraising boost.

“I don’t get paid at all,” Pinnock said. “Actually, I pay to do it. Actually, I’m broke. That’s my beat up Honda Fit out there with 200,000 miles, probably 150,000 of that is taking kids to tournaments, and back, and forth.”

The gym charges a $30 monthly fee for gym access and training, but nobody gets turned away even if they cannot afford the cost.

Boxing has built confidence, improved emotional regulation and given participants a higher purpose in their lives, young boxers told The Morning Call on a recent Thursday evening open session at the gym.

Christopher Diaz said that when he walked into the door of P4P boxing gym five years ago at the age of 14, he was an angry kid, often getting into fights with peers at school. He credits Coach Paul with molding him into a seasoned boxer who has traveled to and competed in tournaments from Florida to California to New Jersey. He now has several amateur boxing titles to his name.

“It helps me every day,” Diaz said. “It helps me keep my mind cool, keeps my mind focused. It keeps all the bad things that I have going on in my life out of the way, when I come here, it takes all this away. It really does help me mentally. This is like my therapy.”

Diaz now is a Dieruff High School graduate who is continuing his training and amateur boxing career while studying for his real estate exam license.

‘Kids need hope’

The operation is nearly all a credit to Pinnock, who grew up as a public school kid in Allentown practicing karate, which he said kept him out of trouble and working toward a purpose in his life.

Based on his own experience as well as his years coaching Allentown youth in the sport, Pinnock believes there is one thing kids need while growing up to keep them on a straight and narrow path.

“The most important thing that kids need is hope,” Pinnock said. “Without hope — the kids who just don’t have hope are the ones that do the bad things. So what I try to do is I try to provide them with a safe place that they can believe in. Something that they could believe in, which is boxing. I use boxing as a tool. It’s just a tool. So if they have a place that they believe in, something that they believe in, and someone that who believes in them, then that’s like a magical formula. So you see all of these kids, it’s like, this is our gang. So that’s the reason I started the gym, is because it gives a certain group of kids a safe place.”

It’s easy to lose hope for many of Allentown School District’s students; nearly a third grow up below the poverty line, which is more than double the rate of poverty Lehigh County-wide. At the same time, mental health issues among all teens are on the rise, no matter their economic status; in 2023, 40% of high school students reported feeling persistent sadness and hopelessness, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Without financial opportunity and a clear path toward a stable future, many students as young as 11 or 12 turn toward options like drugs and crime, according to the young boxers. Some of them admitted that they themselves were going down “the wrong path” until they found the boxing gym.

Pinnock does more than just teach them the sport, boxers said: He encourages them to want more out of their lives. Boxing takes intense physical and mental discipline — fighting through physical pain, exhaustion and extreme emotions all while remaining calm and focused in the fighting ring. All of that translates into life lessons that the boys and young men carry with them throughout their lives.

“I’ve been here for only like a month. It’s made a huge impact for me,” said Timere Plott, an eighth grade student at Raub Middle School. “I was hanging with the wrong crowd … just like, just not being a good kid. He really showed me hard work and discipline that I wasn’t being taught outside the gym. This program, it really, it did change my life. Without this program, I’d probably still be in the mix, hanging around bad influences, just doing things I’m not supposed to.”

The boxers said that while Pinnock encourages, coaches and mentors them, he does not hesitate to hold them accountable, too, if he learns they have gotten into any kind of trouble in school or on the city streets.

“Some people make wrong decisions, and coaches like this, and places like this, they help them make better decisions,” said Yetzadiel Perez, another Raub eighth grader. “If you do something outside of the gym, if Coach just finds out, he tries to hold you accountable, he tries to help you, he tries to fix it. He doesn’t let it happen again. If it happens again, then he makes you like, do an extra workout or something.”

And if boxers continue to make bad decisions outside of the gym, they are not welcomed back, he added.

Lifeline for kids struggling to survive

From absent parents to pressure from their peers, kids growing up in the Lehigh Valley’s cities may find it easier to fall into trouble than stay in school and away from crime and bad influences. Spending time unsupervised and without trusted adult mentorship mean some children inevitably fall into trouble on the streets, where drugs and gangs wield power over teens and young adults’ lives.

According to the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, crime committed by youth peaks in the after-school hours, and nearly a fifth of crimes committed by children under 18 occur on school days between 3 and 7 p.m. On the other hand, participation in after-school programs increases students’ social skills, academic achievements and career readiness, according to research from the nonprofit After School Alliance.

But giving children something as simple as a safe place to go and a trusted adult who cares about them is a safeguard against that lifestyle, boxers said.

“A lot of kids don’t really know what they’re doing. They’re just kind of just living life, they’re going off in the crowds here and there. But like, I know that from here on, I go to school, come to the gym. Like, that is my routine,” said Percel Cody, a professional boxer-in-training at P4P. “So I wasn’t out. I didn’t have the opportunity to go there and go get into drugs, shooting, things like that, because I’m here. It gives me a place to go. It’s home.”

But the gym needs help to stay open. According to Michael Frassetto, president of the nonprofit’s board of directors, the gym is two months late on its rent at its 1518 Walnut St. facility. While the landlord has accommodated it for the past few months, its lease is up in September and it risks not being approved for renewal if it cannot pay back rent.

The funding shortfall has also meant the young boxers will miss out on upcoming tournaments, because money for travel and registration costs is not there, Pinnock said.

“What kind of bothers me is that there’s a tournament, there’s a Junior Olympic national tournament going on right now. They usually participate in it, but we don’t have money to travel to tournaments,” Pinnock said. “There’s been a tournament coming up in August. There’s two actually, there’s one in Florida, there’s one in Michigan. I got kids that, you know, we can’t go. So what happens is when you try to train athletes, if they don’t have something to look forward to, they are not going to get up in the morning, at 5:30 in the morning, and run. It’s like a motivation. So when I don’t have anything, like any tournaments coming up, it’s harder to motivate them.”

P4P is trying to raise at least $10,000 to ensure the gym can pay back its rent and stay open in the immediate future. Further, P4P is looking to partner with more local organizations and benefactors to help it keep running long term.

Advocates for the gym — including the kids that train there — say P4P is about more than just boxing. It’s kept them on an upward path, out of danger and trouble, and ultimately even saved their lives, some of the young boxers said.

Anthony Lebron, a 20-year-old amateur boxer and Liberty High School graduate, is continuing his training at P4P while he prepares to leave the amateur boxing ranks and enter professional leagues this fall. He has spent the last six years of his life working with Pinnock almost daily, and told The Morning Call that while he has been through personal struggles, boxing has been an anchor for him amid the ups and downs.

“It’s been a long road, you know what I mean? But we’re still here, fighting, boxing, you know,” Lebron said. “I lost a lot of people in the streets, you know what I mean, family issues. So boxing was always here. It never changed on me. Boxing, it’s still here. Like, it honestly saved my life.”

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Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.