CAPITOL HEIGHTS, Md. ( DC News Now ) — The NoXcuse Boxing Gym has extra money to help youth around the DMV.
Sen. Nick Charles presented the gym with a $150,000 check from the state of Maryland to help expand the boxing program created to keep young adults, and young children off the street and away from trouble.
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“These children are not on the streets committing the carjackings that’s taking place,” Charles said. “These children are not out here committing armed robberies.”
The gym started in 2006.
“We do a lot of work with getting youth off the streets and had them tear some of that negative energy to a positive energy,” Lamont Roach, Sr. said.
Roach is the gym’s head trainer, and created the gym with his late cousin, a firefighter.
“He was tired of seeing kids die,” Roach said. “He’d go to the scene and seeing certain things that he said he’s going to do something.”
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NoXcuse has been housed in an old barn at Walker Mill Baptist Church. It’s pastor called it a “natural fit.”