We are excited to announce that the Milford Youth Center received a Community Partners for Health grant to support the purchase of a portable boxing ring. With the addition of a boxing ring to our boxing program, the Milford Youth Center is looking to directly increase the attendance of physical fitness programming at the Youth Center.
The mission of the Milford Youth Center is to provide a safe environment that promotes self-
esteem, builds character, and fosters the notion of community and the
importance of respecting and serving others. In staying with this vision, the Center offers many health and fitness classes to our youth during our free after school program, for 8-18-year old’s. T he Center typically offers
two to three structured programs daily, 75% of those being geared towards health and wellness. In addition to these structured programs that the members have a choice to participate in, the Center offers open gym, a game room and a café/lounge area.
Due to a local donation and the dedication of MYC staff and volunteers, the Center was able to officially start the boxing program on November 6, 2018. In the first month alone, we had 34 unduplicated youth participants in the program. We had a total of 97 unduplicated youth participate over last school year (2018-2019) and we are looking to increase those numbers for thiscurrent school year, especially with the introduction of a boxing ring!
We believe that the addition of a boxing ring will only increase participation and in turn increase physical activity with the population we serve. As an added reward and incentive to afterschool members who participate in any of our fitness and/or nutritional programs, we also provide a fresh fruit or vegetable snack after the program is over. We incorporated this into our
full year programming last school year with the goal in mind to improve
the nutrition and health of our after school members. In fact, we gave out 912 pieces of fruits and vegetables last year through programs which included nutrition, boxing, cardio dance jam, POUND, weight lifting and fit camp! Thank you CHNA-6 for awarding us this grant! We would also like to thank interim Police Chief Michael Pighetti for writing a letter of support for the grant!