Hello, readers! Welcome! Today, I’m sharing a conversation that I recently had with Billy Moore and Terence Shigg of the ABC Youth Foundation, whose mission is “to empower San Diego’s inner city youth to face life’s challenges without cowardice but with courage and dignity.” This organization has been a positive, life-changing refuge for kids for over 60 years, which is an accomplishment in and of itself! Read below to find out what they have going on.

What is ABC Youth Foundation?

Billy: ABC Youth Foundation is an organization that teaches our youth how to step off in life with their best foot forward without cowardice; but with courage and dignity.

And how does it achieve that?

Billy: Well, let me tell you about the origin of it first. My dad was given a vision to teach our youngsters. He met with President Eisenhower; he said [that] the United States [was] headed for a gang and drug epidemic. He said that if we would go into prevention [as] opposed to rehabilitation, we could save billions of dollars and millions of lives. And when it first started, it used to be called Any Boy Can, but with the emergence of you powerful, strong women, it was changed to Any Body Can.

When it did it actually start?

Terence: 1957

Who was your father?

Billy: My dad was Archie Moore…the lightweight champion of the world. He’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most knockouts in the history of boxing.

And so, because of that, he was able to get an audience with Eisenhower?

Billy: No, because of the Lord. The Lord gave him the vision of ABC. He was champion of the world and so the Lord opened the door for him to be invited to the White House.

Boxing is the backdrop. Boxing is the catalyst. Any kid that comes past the gym, they want to be a champion. But what happens in here…we do build champions in boxing, but we build, mostly, champions at life. We have a number of students that avoided pitfalls. We CAN do rehabilitation, but we don’t do rehabilitation. We do prevention.

And the way that we do it [is] we get the kids in here, we find out what it is that they want to do in life…We have something that’s called the ABC Concept, “Any Body Can.” We teach them that first of all, you’ve got to respect yourself. Then respect this country. And we say the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we ask each of their names. And their names are “Student Anne,” “Student Billy,” “Student Terrence,” “Student Shana”…that’s their title. And I am Instructor Moore. And so, we put on our thinking caps. Let’s think what a good student would do to be successful in life, and what a good student would not do that could cause him to be in derailed in life.

Throw on your thinking cap, and let’s think about what a good student would do, should do, could do and ought to do in order to become a better student in school, a better American and a better all-around person…go to church, go to school, go to junior high school, go to high school, get a high school diploma, go to college, get a college degree. Once you get that degree, you gotta get a job. That’s the basics. We’re working on the basics. Get a job. That’s right. Be an engineer, plumber, doctor, lawyer, own my own business; work at McDonald’s, work at Jack in the Box; these are things that get them to thinking.

Are you happy with what’s going on in this country? “No.” Okay, well, what are we going to do? “Well, we gotta change it, Coach.” Well, how are we going to change it? “You gotta go into politics.” Those kids can just about give you every political position. Be a senator, councilman, congressman, judge, vice president, president…and this is what we give our kids.

How old are the kids?

From 7 – 17.

What are the day-to-day operations like here?

Terence: The operations…I smile when I say that because it depends on what walks through the door. It varies. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we have tutoring, which is free…so, any kid in the community can come in and get tutoring. If they don’t need tutoring and they want to work out, they can go straight to the back and start working out. If they’re hungry, we’ll get them food. If it’s a birthday, we might even have a birthday party. So, it really just depends on what they need on that day.

And when you say, “work out,” does that mean that they just go work out by themselves, or there’s a class, or…?

Terence: It goes both ways. There’s always a coach back there. All of our coaches are volunteers, so they have other jobs, but when they can get here, they’re here. One of our coaches — I call him our “calisthenics specialist” — he’ll get them in groups and he’ll run them, and then he’ll do calisthenics with them. The other ones are our skills coaches, so they’ll get them on the bag and they’ll teach them their footwork, or they’ll teach them their punches or their jabs. The other ones will do individual work with them. Every once in a while, we’ll let them spar together, because we do have a team of them that are part of the Amateur Boxing Association, where they can travel and compete. Those that compete, they’ll have a different level of training. But, there’s always a class or an individual coach back there to help them. So it varies, it goes back and forth. And we take kids from 7 to 17, and then adults.

How many kids come through here regularly?

Terence: I’d say [that] on a daily basis we run anywhere from 25 – 35. One school, on Friday alone, will send 180 kids. Their P.E. class is here every Friday. So, we’ll have six classes of 30 each, and we’ll run them through all day long, and then we’ll open the actual gym so then our regular kids will come in and we’ll have another 25 – 35. So that day we’ll run about 200 kids through here. So, it’s pretty busy on Fridays.

Do you feel like this place is an institution in this neighborhood?

Terence: I think what Archie Moore and what Instructor Moore, (Billy), have put together is an institution in not just this neighborhood, but in this community altogether. It’s hard to go someplace [where] Billy doesn’t already know somebody or someone knows him. It’s definitely an institution…it’s more than just the boxing. The boxing is the bait, but that concept, and the sense of community, and teaching kids to respect themselves and respect others and to have goals and to realize, “Okay, I can do those things if I want to,” and to actually see people that encourage them every time they come through the door, that’s – priceless. I was blessed enough to have a parent and family that always encouraged me, but you forget that everybody doesn’t have that when they get home. They don’t have somebody that actually encourages them and says, “Okay, that’s what you want to do – let’s figure out how to do it.” And that’s one of the things we pride ourselves on, because that’s what we’re going to do. If a kid comes in here, and they want to do something, we’re going to find somebody to mentor them. We have former students that — one’s a deputy district attorney, one’s got a full ride to Cal State Berkeley, another one is applying to medical school in Chicago. And then we have Lamar, who’s on our board, who was alumni of the year for Morehouse and is one of the educators here in the San Diego community, who is very well-known. So, there’s story after story after story of a kid that’s come up through ABC that’s successful here in the community, and that’s not even counting, not even discussing, the generations of those that are just businessmen that brought their kids back once they grew up to come here and box. So, it is pretty amazing when you see it.

What’s your favorite thing about it?

Terence: To me, the favorite thing is just the kids. To have a place where they can go – and our goal is to make this a safe place, that they can come here, and whatever they need – it’s a boxing gym, but if you need shoes, (we just bought 50 pairs of shoes for kids), we’re going to get you shoes. I am a creative person by nature, so I don’t do well in structured environments; so, to me, the best thing is [that] you never know what’s going to walk in the door.

If they come through and they need food, we’re going to give them food. If they’re having a bad day, then we have to deal with that first. So, to me, that’s the thing I enjoy the most. There’s no telling what’s going to come through the door. And we laugh at it every single time. But, that’s the exciting part. And then, to know that God has put things in place beyond what I could have ever even done or imagined. We were talking one day about how we had a lot of coaches and volunteers, but we didn’t have any female coach volunteers. So, I’m driving around and I’m thinking to myself, “You know what? It’d be nice if we had a female coach.” By the time I got out of my car and came in here, Andrea was in here. She just moved here from Arizona and [she was] asking if she could volunteer to coach. So, little things like that will pop up.

What is your biggest challenge?

Terence: To me, the biggest challenge is always funding — connecting the resources with the people. We’re just the conduit, meaning, the funding and the resources just go to us so that we can put them back out in the community. The hardest part is to find those resources and connect them with the community.

 To you, what does it mean to be a visionary?

 Billy: A true visionary is given a vision by God to better and to expand and expound upon His business. That’s what a true visionary is.

Terence: To me, a visionary is someone that thinks around the corners…doesn’t have to have all the solutions, and doesn’t really do it for self-interest but does it for – and, the phrase that always runs through my head is – for the expansion of His kingdom. Meaning, whatever I’m doing, I’m doing it not for me and not for today, but, [for] down the road. And whatever those things [are] that are necessary down the road, we’ll build on it; but we’ll set up a foundation that will last around that corner. And visionaries, to me, are persistent. They just keep pushing forward, even though everyone else may not see your picture or see your vision or believe your vision, you have to be able to believe that there’s something bigger than you – that God has given you this ability, and given you this task, and He wouldn’t have given it to you if He didn’t plan on you completing it.

 As far as nonprofit work in general, what do you think is the value of nonprofit work? How has being involved changed you?

Terence: The value of nonprofits — and the reason why I don’t think they’ll ever go away — is [that] nonprofits are, by nature, foot soldiers. They’re on the ground, in the communities – they see the day-to-day. Even though we know the big picture, we’re not overwhelmed by the big picture because the little things are what propel us forward to keep doing everything. To me, that’s the beauty of the nonprofits. We are doing things that everybody wants done, yet everybody doesn’t know how they actually get done. They just assume that there’s a government agency or some fairy out there that’s granting wishes that does it, when actually it’s the nonprofits that are out there putting backpacks on kids, putting shoes on kids’ feet, feeding them, teaching them, making sure that they’re safe in the communities. That’s what the nonprofits do by nature.

 Is there anything you wish people knew about the work you’re doing?

Billy: As long as God knows, that’s all that matters to me, really. As long as He knows.

Terence: I would say, just specifically for us, I think the biggest misconception is that it’s about boxing, that it’s just a boxing gym. We tell people all the time, it would take six, seven agencies to do what we do out of this “boxing gym” — from providing food, to encouraging grades, to honor rolls…everything we do is stuff that needs to be done, and we have no problem doing it, it’s just that it’s not just about boxing to us, it’s --

It’s more of a community center.

Terence: Yes, and developing kids.

How can someone who’d like to help get involved?

Terence: There’s many different levels that people can help. If you just want to come down and make an impact immediately and help, we need volunteers as far as coaches, tutors, mentors…that’s always a need. As far as financially, we always look for donors to reach out and help us with that, because that’s what enables us to do the free tutoring and that’s what enables us to keep the gym open so that any kid that comes in here can have boxing lessons and tutoring and mentoring. Because one of the things that we’re very proud of is [that], unlike another gym where you have initiation fee and a yearly contract, we only have the monthly fee, which is $40 for kids and $50 for adults. And then on top of that, it doesn’t matter to us. You’re going to get the lessons whether you can pay or not, and if you have multiple kids, we’re not charging you for two kids, we’re just charging you for one, and that’s if you can pay it. If you can’t, we really don’t even sweat that. So, that’s why the donors are very important to us. And usually, it’s a lot of individual donors that’ll say, “Okay, I see what you guys are doing. I understand,” and they’ll help out. So, those are the major areas, and then there’s other areas, such as people with expertise in media, or in meditation, or in – if you want to give your time to teach kids those skills that they need, you’re welcome to it.

Readers, there you have it. If you or someone you know has skills, interest or a passion for kids, coaching, mentoring, tutoring, or anything else you think the ABC Youth Foundation could use, or if you have funds you can contribute, you can find more information at: http://abcyouthfoundation.org/. Billy and Terence tell me that they hope to expand to other cities as well, so if you have any connections that can be of assistance, please reach out.

If you like the images accompanying this story and would like to explore how visual storytelling could help your organization share the heart of its mission, please visit my website, www.soulvoyagerstudios.com, or send me an email at soulvoyagerstudios@gmail.com. To receive each blog post in your inbox when it is posted, as well as regular content regarding visual storytelling and inspiring ways to make a difference in this world, subscribe to my newsletter below!