CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — After years of organizing vigils and tribute murals on the West Side for children killed in gun violence, the founding partners of the Little Village Boxing and Community Center said they felt the need to do more for their communities.
“Solutions, instead of just continuing to do murals; What can we do to help prevent this from happening in the future?” said Delilah Martinez, founder of the Pilsen-based Mural Movement.
Martinez is also one of founding partners of the new center, which she said will offer family-oriented programming, food pantries, job training, art programs, mentorship and boxing.
“We know that boxing includes discipline and structure for the kids, so we really want to include some type of health and fitness in our programming,” she said.
The Little Village Boxing and Community Center’s mission will be to empower young people and their families to break the cycle of gang involvement and violence in their communities. Ricky Flores is another one of the center’s founders.
“That’s what these kids need. These kids need mentors, and they have no mentors out there,” he said. “All of the older guys do their thing, and all the younger guys do their own thing, and then they’re like: ‘Why is Carlos so wild?’ There’s no structure. There’s nobody mentoring. There’s nobody telling them what’s right from wrong.”
Flores said he might not be a youth mentor today if he hadn’t been given a similar opportunity as a young man.
“How can you talk to them if you don’t know what they went through?” Flores said. “They see me as somebody relatable to them, because I went through what they’re going through — the trauma, and all that stuff — I went through all of that.”
Community mothers who have lost children to gun violence are also part of the founding partnership. Martinez said they have a well-rounded group behind the center, which should allow them to provide support and services for “anybody that’s in need of any type of help.”
The idea, Flores said, is to provide Little Village, Lawndale and Pilsen residents with a center that serves the whole community.
“It’s like a family thing,” he said. “There’s going to be the kids at risk, but the moms [are] also out there, the moms that went through trauma. The brothers, the kids that went through trauma, and the dads. Some type of trauma with their kids passing away or their kids being shot, we’re going to try to do a big community center where it’s … for everybody.”
The Little Village Boxing and Community Center will open the first week of July in a warehouse building at 30th Street and Kilbourn Avenue.
It is community funded, and there’s currently a GoFundMe to raise money for renovations and gym equipment.
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