At Arcaro Boxing gym in Seattle, the owner and coach, Tricia Arcaro Turton, is empowering women to get started in the sport and raising money to make boxing more accessible to everyone.
Arcaro Turton created the Clara M. Carlucci Foundation to help local athletes have the opportunity to train in the sport of boxing, compete in tournaments and level up in their fitness.
"It's incredibly expensive and it's incredibly labor intensive and a lot of folks in boxing don't have the money and they don't have the time if they're having to work to get the money, so we want to help them have better opportunities, take care of their finances, give them the travel opportunities, and get those chances to compete at national levels,” Arcaro Turton told King5 News.
Arcaro Turton, together with Kim Bao, the coach at Queens Dojo, hosted an international women’s boxing tournament Tacoma.
Bao said, “There's actually not a lot of women's tournaments out there. It's actually hard to bring women into a space to compete together and we wanted to create a tournament that would be successful and honor the fact that women need space to compete."
The money raised from the women’s tournament went directly to the Clara M. Carlucci Foundation. Bao and Turton hope to host this tournament on a regular basis so that more women can be introduced to the sport and climb the ranks of competition. In this way, the foundation is both lowering the cost barrier to entry, but is also providing the competition venue that is so limited for women in the sport.
"Our whole purpose for living is to be of service to others. There really doesn't seem to be another purpose to me. As a coach, and as a community member myself, we have to be of service to one another. It's why I formed this gym," said Arcaro Turton.
