The Zanesville Police Athletic League needs help to keep the heat on
ZANESVILLE, Ohio – The Zanesville Police Athletic League, or PAL, offer local youth a boxing program and sense of community but needs your help to keep the heat on.
Located at the corner of Pine Street and Nancy Avenue, the organization offers a boxing gym that’s free to local youths with a goal to keep them off the street and out of trouble. Due to funding issues and rising costs, PAL is trying everything to keep the doors open and the heat on.
“It’s bad. We may have enough to run one month if we stay open. This is the first time since the PAL’s been open that we’ve considered shutting down for the winter because our winter bills run roughly around 2 grand or more a month,” said Josh Ward, vice president of PAL. “Our gas bill alone is like $1,400 to $1,500 a month just cause it’s an old brick building and there’s really not a lot of insulation and we can’t really keep it too warm.”
To help make ends meet, PAL has a Go Fund Me fundraiser going on now and will be running two sets of gun raffles in the month of December as well as basket raffles. Vice President of the Zanesville PAL, Josh Ward, says helping them gives kids more than a place to box and train but a community and safety net.
“I mean there’s worse things you spend money on. I mean you got a bunch of kids that don’t have a whole lot and they come in here and we give them everything we can,” Ward said. “We do whatever we can for them. I mean even if that’s just giving them clothes or shoes not even affiliated with boxing. You know we do what we can. There’s been kids come in here and we fed them. I mean we just do whatever they need.”
You can learn more about their raffles or contribute to their Go Fund Me by visiting the Zanesville PAL community Facebook page.
