Article originally published in The Middletown Press
MIDDLETOWN >> A city gym and health clinic will collaborate to on a fundraiser to begin Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
New Horizons Domestic Violence Services and 9Round Fitness & Kickboxing have teamed up for a fundraiser on Oct 4 from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. at 9Round’s 779 Newfield St. location.
All proceeds will go to New Horizons, a Community Health Center program that caters to victims of domestic violence and abuse.
According to a 2012 report by CHC spokesperson Eliza Cole, New Horizons offers services to 1,300 victims each year. The clinic also runs community education and support groups, as well as providing counseling and legal advocacy and maintaining a 24-hour-a-day hotline service.
“We’ve teamed up with New Horizons and this is the first event that we’re trying to have,” said 9Round owner Sheila Garvy. “We’re trying to raise some money and awareness of domestic violence.”
Participants will go through the gym’s classic workout – nine three-minute rounds with 30-second rest periods – with a bend toward educating the kickboxers on domestic violence statistics.
The workouts incorporate elements of kickboxing and will include heavy bags, speedbags and double-end bags, said Garvy.
“You come in, and there’s no class time – we get people in and off the floor every three minutes,” said Garvy. Those working out monitor a traffic light-style timer on the wall. For two and a half minutes of green light, you work out, then “yellow is the 30-second burnout, then on red, that’s when we move you to your next round.”
“It’s fun, it’s fast and we change it every day,” said Garvy.
For the fundraiser, participants can pay in $1 per round themselves, or raise pledges for each round they work out. “We have pledge forms in the club and around various areas – the CHC has forms,” said Garvy. “I’m trying to get my members to have other people pledge for them.”
And while the workouts do have a component of self-defense, Garvy said that “It’s about people feeling better about themselves and having self-esteem.”
“Maybe it would give them the power to get out of a situation,” said Garvy.
According to the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, three women are killed every day by a current or former intimate partner in the U.S., and one in every four women will undergo “severe physical violence by an intimate partner at some point in their life.”