Jack founded Training Cave, a gym by day and boxing club at night, in Birstall in 2017.
He says youth services in the area were cut years ago.
“There’s just nowhere for them to go anymore.
Loads of kids from the estates turned up at the gym with no money and couldn’t afford it.
I said, we’ll train you and you can owe us, but months went by and I realised I couldn’t sustain that as a business.”
Boxing, Jack says, has a huge impact on young people.
“It’s everything. It’s discipline, respect; your taught nothing in life comes without hard work. Boxing just teaches you so many life lessons. It’s tough, but you’re surrounded by people that are also doing something hard, and coaches who are role models.”
He contacted the council, saying all these kids were coming in and is there anything they can do to help with funding. They offered Jack a course in social enterprise, and he turned Training Cave into a not forprofit.
“From there, things have just escalated,” he says. “I’ve gone from being on my own to having six full time staff, as well as volunteers.”
Training Cave runs a youth referral programme, a school programme for children at risk of being expelled, and an employability programme offering sports leadership to young people out of education or work.
It also delivers outreach work using a portable boxing ring, going into local parks and estates, high in antisocial behaviour: “One summer we engaged with over 1100 young people just over a four-week period.”
They also cater to the older demographic, with an over- 50s session.
Training Cave engages 1,000 people each month.
Jack says many in the community would feel ‘lost’ without it: “It’s like a family.”
Jack has big ambitions. “If I can find a bigger premises, I’d like to be a community hub. Boxing would be at the core, but as an organisation we’d have more going on, like a café, a youth area, rooms that local businesses could hire out.”
Training Cave transforms lives, such as Ben’s, who is autistic and started aged 15.
Jack explains: “Now, Ben is 19, he’s got an apprenticeship as a civil engineer. He’s just developed the confidence and is a confident young man. He was in a shell when he first came. He’s one of our big success stories.”
Key Fund provided a £19,500 loan and £5,500 grant to help cash flow and salary costs to employ a new person.
Jack says: “It’s been like a lifeline for us.
It had been a challenging year because we had money due to us but it wasn’t being paid on time. So, I was on the verge of scaling it all the way back to just being me. Key Fund supported us through that period, so we were able to employ people.
It was strange going from one extreme to the other, but if it wasn’t for Key Fund, we wouldn’t have been able to do that. Key Fund has been absolutely brilliant through the whole process.”
Jack Sunderland
