2011 Cappy’s Boxing Club 501c3 adopted the empty lot across the street. This property, owned by the Good Shepard Lutheran Church, was filled with tall standing weeds hiding underlying junk.  The lot cleanup, sponsored by Scott Meredith, provided Boxers the opportunity to practice Life Skills.  These Skills included  digging, hauling, carrying and developing Community Pride.

Cappy’s Boxing Club 501c3 continued to foster the lot.  The Club established a garbage can, and the lot shifted into an informal Community Dog Park.  Cappy’s Boxing Club mowed it in the summers, emptied the garbage can all seasons and conducted Old School Training Sessions in the space.  The Good Shepard Lutheran Church continued to use its property for overflow parking during special events.

September 2013, with one days notice, Cappy’s Boxing Gym learned that the lot had been transferred to a Nickelsville encampment.  Immediately Community Change  happened.

The lot filled with tent-type structures, a pallet fence, Honey Pots and new residents.  Last week a Cappy’s Boxing Gym Member reported his car, parked at E Pine and 22nd, had his car broken into while working out at Cappy’s.  He returned home and tracked his phone to the Nickelsville encampment.

Cappy’s Boxing Gym owner, Cap Kotz, crossed the street to the Nickelsville encampment to ask questions.  What happened?  How had this Community Change come about.  Seems the answer is the theft seems to have been at the hands of a visitor to the area.  Clearly the visitor visited the Nickelsville encampment, though no one seems to know who this visitor was.

Cappy’s Boxing Club 501c3 continues to uphold its commitment to the lot once empty and weed filled, aka informal dog park aka Nickelsville encampment.  Stay tuned for Nickelsviulle encampment 22nd & E union Resident Stories as hosted by CBC (Cappy’s Boxing Club 501c3)  If you wish to support our efforts, please check out our website cappysgym.com and link to Cappy’s Boxing cCub

Cappy’s Boxing Gym trains Boxers of all types.  The Boxers have various options: they can train to get in shape, increase confidence and decrease stress,  learn Boxing Fundamentals , compete or cross train.  And they can train to take on Personal Matches.

Recently, Local Small Business Owner, “Rock” asked Cappy’s Boxing Gym for help in training for a big Personal Match.  Rock assessed the Personal Match as a 9 on a scale of 1 – 10, with 10 being an extreme challenge.  Thus began her training for a Title Match.

Rock’s family had taken a financial and emotional hit.  She was close to tears when communicating this, though she said tears were rare for her – usually a sign that she needed the emotional outlet.  Anxiousness was not normally part of her day to day experience.  However, she did say that a twenty year + marriage had taught her a lot on this front.  Her main goal in taking on this Title Match was keeping up her strength and fortitude to help her family get through the hard times.

First thing she did was put the family on a strict budget and schedule her training in at the gym so that didn’t fall by the wayside.  Rock began to appreciate her own sense of independence and the strength she had gained from taking risks.  This helped her to better understand she did have the strength to see her family through the hard times.  She depended on the upbeat and positive focus at Cappy’s Boxing Gym.  Keeping to a regular workout calmed her down and helped her understand that things were not as out of control as she had thought.

Rock came to realize that simply taking her stance, no matter if she were standing in line at the grocery story or was in the gym, boosted her sense of being in control.   Now, three months since she started training for her Personal Match, she feels confident that the crisis is past and she is, once again, where she wants to be emotionally and financially.

The Community Health and Well Being Project, hosted by Cappy’s Boxing
Club and sponsored by Swedish Medical, came to an end Saturday June 1 2013 with a Project Presentation at Swedish Medical.

The Presentation was a colorful display of stories that crisscrossed the Central Area, connecting Youth, Business Owners, Community Members and a common sense of what is the true nature of Community Health and Well Being.

Thank you  everyone who participated in the Project and look for future Projects that Cappy’s Boxing Gym will be doing.

As part of the Community Health and Well Being Project, Cappy’s Boxing Club members and volunteers hit the streets on Sunday to participate in the Neighborhood Spring Clean.  The Goal was to see garbage as treasure, find as much as possible, and to get an excellent workout.

The garbage collected was largely cigarette butts, bottles and bottle caps, with an assortment of socks, T-shirt and misc items tossed into the mix.

Discoveries were:  some items might have started out as lost before becoming garbage; some garbage blended into the the leaves; it took a lot longer than one might think to clean up a section of the Neighborhood, and there was a lot of bending over involved.

The garbage outside businesses was different than the garbage outside apartment buildings.  One person thanked us and another asked we leave the garbage where it was.  We only found one pile of dog poop.  (Right on dog owners!)  Also, there were garbage trails.  For example:  a series of chicken bones followed by a dental floss tool.

Afterwards, the Crew agreed we had completed 500+ Squats, worked the Lats, Biceps, Triceps and got a tremendous Hamstring Workout.  All in all, a great success and one of the many rewards of hanging out at Cappy’s!