The Pan Am Games are steadily approaching; in fact they are just around the corner. To that end, Success Beyond Limits (SBL) continues to engage students in sports recreation that promotes a healthy lifestyle while at the same time getting Toronto’s young people ready and engaged for the Pan Am games! MJKO and SBL are combining efforts to get youth involved in the world of boxing at the Harbour front Community Centre.

MJKO staff and volunteers train youth of diverse backgrounds on how to properly throw boxing combinations with the appropriate form, along with cardio activities that stretch the young people passed their limits – all of this while learning how to throw a proper right jab and left hook. SBL recognizes the reality that many young people deal with a lot in their respective lives, which may contribute to the tensions, pressures and stresses built up in their lives over time. Unfortunately, sometimes this tension leads to bad decisions being made in their lives as evidence of tensions spilling over. For this reason, SBL sees it necessary for young people to be actively involved in healthy physical activity that allows for the release of tension with one of many outcomes being the promotion of healthy communication.

SBL sees an importance for youth to have outlets to deal with tensions built over time through recreational activities such as boxing and other physical activity. Through providing youth with opportunities and activities for healthy exercise, that helps and aid in keeping our participants busy and active with the hopes of a more positive outcome in life. SBL’s Austen Lettmen who expressed his interest in boxing along with a couple of other like-minded students, was connected to the MJKO boxing crew through Success Beyond Limits staff. Austen confessed early on that he had never taken a downtown streetcar and before the boxing opportunity, he never had a good enough reason to leave Jane-Finch. That comment was very profound as it validates the need for SBL to continually expose young people to experiences and opportunities that otherwise would not come their way. SBL commends MJKO for all the selfless work they are doing as they have contributed to the positive exposure of our youth to healthy physical activity.