Montreal West Island boxing club launches summer camp for at-risk youth

Fostering positive relationships and building brighter futures — that’s the goal of the Urban Legends Boxing Club — which is known for helping at-risk teenagers.

Now, the club is taking that mission even further by launching their Summer Boxing Camp once again, this time in their new facility in Pointe-Claire on Montreal’s West Island, and the best part, registration is currently open for the program that kicks off in July.

“The summer camp is like a month-long. You have to pick what week you would like to go and I picked to go for two weeks because it seemed really fun because I saw videos from last year and each week there’s different activities like the coach that’s going to be the coach for the summer camp is Michael and he’s going to be taking us swimming, rock climbing, and also like both and like kayaking,” said Silan Shafii, teen boxer and summer camp participant at Urban Legends Boxing Club.

“I like coming to Urban Legends because I got to learn self-defense, and also I just have a lot more confidence when I come here, and I like sharing here because all the coaches are nice and they all motivate you,” Shafii added.

On top of the summer camp, the kids can take boxing classes year-round, starting with the Little Legends classes for children as young as five years old on Sundays and a class for the older kids after school called teen boxing – they even have Sport-Study programs. 

“The summer camp we started last summer. So I always use boxing as a way to, as a tool to bring kids together. And then my goal is to always create a community. And community comes with creating experiences and creating an impact through different activities. So that’s what I try to do!” explained Michael Dorado, a boxing coach and the head of the teen program at Urban Legends Boxing Club.

“That program allows kids to use boxing as a way to help them educationally. So they come, you know, half days here, and they train boxing. And they use it as a way to kind of push their academics even further,” Dorado went on to say.

“I love it here it’s a lot of fun the community is really nice, everybody here, they’re all really nice, they all talk they all play around, we all have fun,” said Adamo Montagne, who is part of the sport-study program at Urban Legends Boxing Club.

“If you’re going to come here, expect it to be hard, but it’s also a really good environment for you to express yourself. It’s really everybody’s nice, so just stay calm and be yourself.”

Over the years, some of the youths have even gone from partaking in the after-school program to become amateur boxers like Nolan Brown, who’s now ranked second in Quebec and holds an 8-3 win-loss record.

“One of the best things I love about this job is seeing how some of the kids like evolve over the years. So sometimes you get kids that come in really shy and then after a couple of sessions, they open up and they start, you know, expressing themselves a lot more just by the simple fact that boxing creates confidence in like youth nowadays. So that’s why I always try to promote boxing as a way to, you know, help build character with each and every kid that comes in through our doors,” said Dorado.

Kayden Holder, a little legends and summer camp participant, adds, “I used to be more like a shy person when I became a more open and talkative person.”