Feet First Foundation teams up with WBC Cares to help young people

The Feet First Foundation uses boxing training to transform the lives of youths physically, emotionally, and mentally and has partnered with WBC Cares. 

Boxing is a misunderstood sport. From the outside looking in, it seems violent and brutal. It can be those things at the professional level, but it’s also a healing source that has saved countless lives. The Feet First Foundation understands that, and so does the WBC.

If you look beneath the hard exterior of boxing to its training core, you will see a process that helps build up individuals physically, mentally, and emotionally. Tyson Fury, Gervonta Davis, Bernard Hopkins, and many other legendary boxers attest to boxing as a sanctuary.

Feet First Foundation co-founder and MMA and boxing coach, Sean Sharkey, understood boxing’s restorative power from his time inside his gym.

“I’ve always thought that training was a great place to balance,” said Sharkey via information provided by Feet First Foundation.

Sharkey added, “If I could get to a gym, I could get through it. I could get through anything that the world pushes at me as bad as it could be.”

Sharkey uses his personal experience to help people at his gym Fightkore MMA and Boxing. One day, Dan Dorsett walked through his doors. Dorsett came in and quickly saw that his participation in combat sports training was positively impacting him. He suggested an idea to Sharkey.

Dorsett witnessed Sharkey’s influence on his young pupils and how they changed for the better. Dorsett asked Sharkey if he would be interested in starting a widespread program to improve the lives of youths. Sharkey agreed, and Feet First Foundation was born.

Sharkey and Dorsett began their work locally in the Martinez, CA, area. Students at nearby Vicente High School were some of the first to take part in Feet First Foundation’s boxing program. Amy Specter, a counselor at the high school, was impressed by the emotional growth her students underwent. More than physical benefits, Specter believes that boxing training offers students mentorship from trainers like Sharkey, and it helps improve their self-esteem.

The Feet First Foundation is utilizing boxing to help children and students in need of guidance and support

“I think when you know, when Sean started this program, it was more like, hey, this is going to be boxing right into to the specifics of boxing,” said Specter. “I think he quickly realized that students needed more, and they were hungry for more and that he had more to offer. I think that’s really a gift that he has — is this ability to create a nice, trusting mentoring relationship with students.”

Specter’s words essentially encapsulate the magic of Feet First Foundation’s boxing program. It offers young people guidance, leadership, and emotional sustenance through boxing training. She was so overwhelmed by the program’s impact that she joined Feet First Foundation’s Board of Directors.

It was Feet First Foundation’s ability to offer young people guidance, leadership, and emotional sustenance through boxing training that made Specter buy into their vision, but she’s not the only one.

Feet First Foundation’s aim is spreading and resonating with people around the country and internationally. They’ve partnered with boxing sanctioning body organization WBC and their WBC Cares initiative.

The WBC helps amplify Feet First Foundation’s message and outreach. More people, like boxing trainer Paul Trapani, see the benefits of boxing training on kids, especially at-risk adolescents.

“I knew from past experience with kids, how the kids, and most of the kids in my martial art class, grew exponentially emotionally,” Trapani told FanSided. “It was about taking these kids and teaching them boxing techniques. And at the same time, the boxing part is the smallest part of it. That’s the part that gets the kids to open to us as instructors, and after some time, confidants.”

All sports can be used as an outlet for kids, but boxing is unique because it’s an individual sport. Most of the battles during training are man vs. self. People have to battle their thoughts and voices to find success.

However, when training in a group and with guidance, boxing takes on the feel of a team sport, where peers encourage and support. Boxing blends the best of both worlds.

“Boxing and martial arts is really an individual sport,” said Trapani. “It’s all about you. It’s not about your teammate because you don’t have a teammate when you’re boxing or you’re sparring. It is just you and your opponent. But that’s not what we do. We create more of a brotherhood.”

There’s no question about the validity of Feet First Foundation’s efficacy to Trapani. He sees it work time after time.

“So they [kids] wouldn’t talk to us when they came in,” recalled Trapani. “They wouldn’t acknowledge each other or anything. Within a month, every kid who walked in that door shook each other’s hand and our hand at the end of our session. We didn’t tell them to do this. They did it. They shook everyone’s hand and our hands. So it was pretty incredible just to see. To see how they could actually open up to one another.”

Boxing at its most pure level, with the right teacher and leader, can save lives. With the help of WBC Cares and many other selfless individuals, Feet First Foundation is making it their mission to weaponize boxing training to combat some of life’s biggest pitfalls facing children and give them tools to succeed in life.