Final round? Mission-area boxing club seeks new home before month's end

A youth Fraser Valley boxing club is seeking a new home by the end of February after being told it would have to vacate its current home. 

The Abbotsford-Mission boxing club has introduced youth to the sport for 15 years. For the past five of those, it's used the defunct Durieu Elementary School in rural Hadzic, north of Mission. 

"We didn't really have much stuff to do out there for kids. So I thought I would start a boxing club and just try and help some kids you know and give them something to do," said club head coach Dale Gatin. 

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Gatin leads a group of 15 boxers in training, at least three times a week. 

"We try and help at-risk youth," he said. "We bring them in  and just try and give them confidence and self-esteem so that they can feel comfortable themselves not only just in sports, but in life in general." 

Storage shortage

The venue, Durieu Elementary, closed in 2011 but now the Mission School District says it needs the space back. 

"Overall, in our district we are running out of space. We've been having to remove programs and so on to add classrooms," district superintendent Angus Wilson. 

Wilson says the district is opening a school that's currently being used for storage in September, prompting the sudden need for storage space. 

"The boxing group has consumed the school you might say with their stuff, and we need to put our stuff there."

The district notified the club in December that it would need to relocate. 

Hunt for new venue

Gatin says the school's 2,000-square-foot gymnasium worked well for the club, but it could make do with a space that's a bit smaller. Even still, the search for a new home is daunting.

"We're a non-profit organization so we don't have a lot of money," he said. "Things are pretty expensive out here." 

Gatin continues to search for new venues, but has only until the end of February to do it. 

"If we have to, we'll go outside and train outside. We're boxers. We're tough. We can take it."