The Doña Ana Village Boxing Club is trying to help keep kids off the streets and in school, and to do that take a lot of money and hard work. Samantha Sonner recently visited the club to find out more about the work they do and what they want to do in the future.
Youth Boxers of all ages work out at the Doña Ana Village Boxing Club, Joscelyn Olayo, is 8 years old and started boxing at age six.
“You have to work out like every day,” Joscelyn said. “And I like the workout part because it’s fun, and you get training to get ready to fight.”
All the way up to professional boxers like Adan Vasquez, who started boxing at the age of 11, after getting into fights at school. As a professional, he still comes to train and help the younger boxers.
“Boxing taught me a lot,” Vasquez said. “It kept me out of trouble, it kept me straight, and it actually brought my family closer because it’s my dad, my little sister, my brother, and now my 4 year old daughter that kind of trains, and my little girl gets into it.”
Joe Triste, Head coach of the boxing club says they’ve been successful in getting kids off the streets and keeping them off.
“We teach them to box,” Triste said. “But that’s only the beginning. We actually try to instill discipline, we teach them respect. We teach them how to respect themselves, respect others.”
Triste says his boxers are less likely to get in fights outside of the gym.
“Some of are rules that we actually apply are if they are caught fighting out on the streets,” Triste said. “Or in school, or wherever, then we suspend them and apply those sanctions. So they know, they know that it’s a sport. They know that it has to do with discipline and respect and that kind of thing.”
Boxing can help the kids stay focused and do better in school.
Triste says it also helps keep them healthy.
“Of course we don’t all our kids playing video games all the time,” Triste said. “So this keeps them healthy, we talk about health, we talk about nutrition, we talk about being mentally healthy, and things like that, so it just kind of brings them to a cleaner better environment.”
Training at the club is free, and most of the kids who practice there show up every day.
“Most of the kids we have come from broken homes,” Triste said. “Or are at the poverty level. So, they really don’t have a way out, they don’t have an escape, they don’t have many places they can go to feel comfortable. Especially if they don’t have the transportation or the money to get to these activities, and the only thing they pay for here is their hand wraps and their mouthpieces which is no more then 20 bucks there.”
Now, they are looking to help pay for their boxers to compete at amateur competitions with USA boxing, which costs about $85 dollars per boxer, something many kids there can’t afford.
Triste says competing is an important experience.
“I think that’s the way they grow,” Triste said. “You have to have a little bit of competition, so what we do here is we train them, we teach them. And what the competition does is, it helps them apply everything that they’ve learned so it build confidence. It helps ensure that they’re not working for nothing.”
Triste says he wants to help all of the youth boxers follow their dreams and get a good education, like Joscelyn Olayo, who doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.
“I want to go until I’m the world champion,” Joscelyn said.”
For more information about the Doña Ana Village Boxing Club or to donate call (575) 524-6760.
