Fee for Boxing Club KOs Some Members

Aby De La Torre fights to keep off the streets.

Learning to throw a punch and dodge a blow at the city-funded Huntington Park Boxing Club has changed her life--from dealing drugs to trading jabs.

But De La Torre, 19, may be in the final round of her boxing days. Last week, the city began enforcing its requirement that non-residents like De La Torre, who lives in Vernon, pay $10 monthly dues.

She can’t pay it, and 20 other out-of-town, low-income youths have stopped going to the gym in the month since it was announced the policy would be enforced, boxing coach Felix Villarreal said.

“Some of the kids walk here because they don’t have the bus fare,” Villarreal said. “When kids don’t show up and I call them, I can hear it in their voice that they are ashamed that they don’t have the dues. We try to help, but there’s only so much we can do.”

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Club managers said they hope to raise funds through a series of boxing tournaments and carnivals to pay for additional staff and other operational costs. The nonprofit club, which has produced several champions in regional and statewide tournaments, is also aggressively seeking private sponsors to help youths who can’t afford training costs, which sometimes add up to $90 a month when equipment is figured in.

Of the 50 youths, ages 8 to 20, who frequent the club, half come from the toughest neighborhoods of Southeast and South Los Angeles County, Villarreal said.

“Most of my friends are gangbangers, and because they know me, they ask me to go with them to buy drugs and stuff like that,” De La Torre said. “That was my life before.”

Other residents said they would pay the fee, but not without a financial struggle.

For Petra Hernandez, a South-Central Los Angeles resident, the membership dues she paid for her three children are worth it. “It’s going to be difficult to keep paying, but there’s no other program like this in the area. And I’d much rather see them occupied here than in the streets or playing Nintendo.”

The 6-year-old amateur boxing club was close to being knocked out last year after a city inquiry discovered that nearly half of its members were from outside the city.

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Because the boxing club is funded by up to $5,000 a month from a Community Development Block Grant, city officials imposed the residents-only rule in the fall. But until recently they accepted people without charge who did not live in Huntington Park.

City funding ends in June, and council members will then decide whether to continue funding.

“There’s such a small amount of entertainment for kids in Huntington Park that any project we can do for kids, we really have to do,” said Councilman Tom Jackson. “Killing the club doesn’t make sense.”

Even so, the club isn’t as cost-effective as some of the other programs the city pays for, said Clarence P. Williams, the Community Development Block Grant coordinator.

Williams cited the city-funded Gage Middle School after-school program, which serves more than 3,000 youths with a yearly budget of $40,000, providing activities such as computer classes and sports programs.

Gage “is clearly doing more for the same or less amount of money,” he said. “Because there is a finite amount of money, the boxing club has to demonstrate that they have a vital service for the community, or run the risk of not being funded.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allows the city to spend up to $315,000 of its $2.1-million grant on social services such as after-school programs and the boxing club.

Last year, spending for the club was halved from $70,000 to $35,000, forcing a reduction in staff and sparking rumors of the club’s demise. Club enrollment has dwindled steadily from 200 youths in late 1993.