YouthBoxingGymFundraiser

My name is Patrick Burica. I grew up in New York City and retired from the New York City Police Department. After retiring I decided to move to the North Coast of the Dominican Republic. After living here for many years relaxing and enjoying my retirement I now run a youth boxing program with my partner Jason Negron (also from New York living here in the Dominican Republic). Jason is a very spiritual person with a very big heart and is on a mission to help children. It seems that is what has brought us together. Helping kids through the sport of boxing, teaching them discipline, respect and life lessons is what we have come together to do. We train our kids, feed them when we can and spend time watching boxing events together. Some of our kids only come to the gym from time to time because they can't afford to pay the gym fee. Our kids (and some adults) train 5 days a week (they pay a $20. per month gym fee) in a local weight lifting gym (not a boxing gym) with a space, mirrors and a heavy bag. On Saturdays I drive my kids 45 min away with 7 or 8 packed in my jeep sitting on top of each other and others packed in a second vehicle to the government funded boxing gym(the gym in the photo) for sparring against other local boxing teams. The president of amatuer boxing for the province of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic is present and runs the facility which contains a large boxing ring. I would love to get all the friends and family I have and anyone else to make a donation for us to build our own gym from the ground up and purchase all the equipment necessary for this program to get even bigger. If we could get 3,000 people to donate $100. each we would reach our goal. We could actually go to all the local neighborhoods and offer our boxing program to kids for free. Life is very different here in the Dominican Republic. The average monthly salary is $300.-$350. USD so most of the parents of our kids can not afford boxing equipment or gym fees every month. We get some support from foreigners that live here or visit from time to time that pay the gym fees or purchase boxing gloves, sneakers and other equipment for some of the kids in our program but that's all. We buy what we can and pay what we can. We also put together boxing events and the money raised goes towards buying more boxing equipment to keep the program going strong. So we are shooting for the sky in looking to raise the amount listed to purchase the land, architect fees, building permits, construction fees, building supplies, insurance, purchase a boxing ring, heavy bags, gloves, weights, treadmills, a mini van for transportation, etc. With your help we can get it done.