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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit gym\u2019s mission is more relevant than ever in the wake of a pair of Allentown shootings that left two teenagers dead<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t get paid at all,\u201d Pinnock said. \u201cActually, I pay to do it. Actually, I\u2019m broke. That\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n The gym charges a $30 monthly fee for gym access and training, but nobody gets turned away even if they cannot afford the cost.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt helps me every day,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u2018Kids need hope\u2019<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most important thing that kids need is hope,\u201d Pinnock said. \u201cWithout hope \u2014 the kids who just don\u2019t 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\u2019s 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\u2019s like a magical formula. So you see all of these kids, it\u2019s like, this is our gang. So that\u2019s the reason I started the gym, is because it gives a certain group of kids a safe place.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to lose hope for many of Allentown School District\u2019s 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.<\/a><\/p>\n 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 \u201cthe wrong path\u201d until they found the boxing gym.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been here for only like a month. It\u2019s made a huge impact for me,\u201d said Timere Plott, an eighth grade student at Raub Middle School. \u201cI was hanging with the wrong crowd \u2026 just like, just not being a good kid. He really showed me hard work and discipline that I wasn\u2019t being taught outside the gym. This program, it really, it did change my life. Without this program, I\u2019d probably still be in the mix, hanging around bad influences, just doing things I\u2019m not supposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people make wrong decisions, and coaches like this, and places like this, they help them make better decisions,\u201d said Yetzadiel Perez, another Raub eighth grader. \u201cIf 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\u2019t let it happen again. If it happens again, then he makes you like, do an extra workout or something.\u201d<\/p>\n And if boxers continue to make bad decisions outside of the gym, they are not welcomed back, he added.<\/p>\n Lifeline for kids struggling to survive<\/p>\n From absent parents to pressure from their peers, kids growing up in the Lehigh Valley\u2019s 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\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n According to the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,<\/a> 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\u2019 social skills, academic achievements and career readiness, according to research from the nonprofit After School Alliance.<\/a><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of kids don\u2019t really know what they\u2019re doing. They\u2019re just kind of just living life, they\u2019re 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,\u201d said Percel Cody, a professional boxer-in-training at P4P. \u201cSo I wasn\u2019t out. I didn\u2019t have the opportunity to go there and go get into drugs, shooting, things like that, because I\u2019m here. It gives me a place to go. It\u2019s home.\u201d<\/p>\n But the gym needs help to stay open. According to Michael Frassetto, president of the nonprofit\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat kind of bothers me is that there\u2019s a tournament, there\u2019s a Junior Olympic national tournament going on right now. They usually participate in it, but we don\u2019t have money to travel to tournaments,\u201d Pinnock said. \u201cThere\u2019s been a tournament coming up in August. There\u2019s two actually, there\u2019s one in Florida, there\u2019s one in Michigan. I got kids that, you know, we can\u2019t go. So what happens is when you try to train athletes, if they don\u2019t 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\u2019s like a motivation. So when I don\u2019t have anything, like any tournaments coming up, it\u2019s harder to motivate them.\u201d<\/p>\n