Fighting for Funding
By Darlene Bouchard
25 Mar 2009
Every weekday teenagers sit among a row of warehouses with boxing gloves patiently waiting for their trainer and owner of the East Palo Alto Boxing Club to get off work. Johnnie Gray owns the club, and opens it for a few hours most mornings and two hours later in the day after his job as a contractor. Though the club as been funded by the City of East Palo Alto in the past, 2009 will be the first year that the club will receive no funding from the city and will fight to make ends meet through private donations and grants.
Johnnie Gray grew up in East Palo Alto and has watched the city struggle with crime and poverty. In 1992 East Palo Alto had the highest per-capita murder rate in the country. Today, the murder rate has subsided, and the area is evolving. Gray opened the club when there were few recreation centers in the city in hopes of teaching the next generation discipline and self reliance.
Since the club opened five years ago, it has moved three times to accommodate its growing membership. While the future of the club may seem uncertain, Gray has no doubts that he will find support and expand to meet the growing needs of his community. Gray was a boxer himself and sees his current situation as just another round in the history of his club.
You can hear the people at the East Palo Alto Boxing Club tell the story themselves in a multimedia project with the link below (click on 'video')
3 responses
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Michael Adams gave props (26 Mar 2009):
Great story and excellent photos! Good luck and great project to help them out!
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krischan ahlborn said (5 Jun 2009):
Very nice (and brave) picture-sections (or details -didn't find the perfect match in the dictonary)!
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dp * gave props (17 Nov 2009):
Heck yeah it's RAD ! dp
