Student Turns Love of Boxing Into Community Impact
Nicholas Maurio ’30 had a different introduction to Middletown than most first-year students. Earlier this month, he handed a $7,000 check to the Middletown Police Activities League (PAL) Boxing Program during a ceremony with Middletown Mayor Gene Nocera on August 4. He raised this money through his nonprofit, the Brooklyn Youth Boxing Fund, which promotes teaching boxing as a tool for youth development.
“Boxing may bring young people through the doors of a gym, but it is the relationships they build inside that have the greatest impact,” said Maurio. “The coaches, mentors, teammates, and supportive adults they encounter often become the foundation for confidence, discipline, resilience, and hope. Our goal is to help community boxing programs continue providing those opportunities for the young people they serve.”
Maurio first stepped into a boxing gym a few years ago on the advice from a coach. He played tennis in high school and his coach suggested that boxing could help with his footwork, balance, and coordination. He initially went to Gleason’s, a boxing gym in Brooklyn, New York, where a trainer told him he should go to a gym in Flatbush if he wanted to compete. Inside the new gym, NYC Cops & Kids Boxing, he found a group of people his age who used the gym as a safe space with structure and trainers who served as role models and mentors.
He felt inspired by the community within the gym. He also noticed much of the equipment was worn and needed to be replaced. “I knew I wanted to do something about it and I've been following that feeling ever since,” Maurio said.
Maurio started his nonprofit with the aim of supporting community boxing programs like the Cops & Kids gym and Middletown PAL. “The idea first kind of started because we were seeing all of these underprivileged kids who boxed and they didn't have much to live with really, besides boxing,” he said. “We thought if we could support that and actually give them something to enjoy and make the gym better by raising money, it would be really good to do.”
His first donation was a $7,000 donation to NYC Cops & Kids Boxing in June of 2024 at an event with former New York City Mayor Eric Adams at Madison Square Garden. The donation to the PAL gym in Middletown, which he made at the Middletown Police Department’s “National Night Out” event on the Middletown South Green, is his second. It is intended to help support the PAL Boxing Program, which he will frequent while attending school at Wes, to address equipment and maintenance needs, Maurio said. In both instances, he raised money for the gifts through sales of Brooklyn Youth Boxing Fund merchandise and donations to the nonprofit.
“I made this donation to Middletown PAL specifically because of the effort being put in to maintain it and improve it, especially by [Middletown Police Officer] Joe Santiago,” said Maurio, a Long Island native. “When we found out that it was mainly him that ran the whole place, it made sense to donate to the gym in order to support him in a way that would truly benefit the gym. Going to college in Middletown also allows me firsthand to see the benefits and improvements the donation may bring, as I know the gym will continue to do great things.”
Alongside the monetary support his charity provides, Maurio also developed the Brooklyn Youth Boxing Model, an evidence-informed framework that promotes youth boxing as an engagement strategy for underserved youth. His model uses boxing as a delivery method for established principles of positive youth development, including a focus on teaching personal development through supportive mentorship and skill building. He said the model looks to develop traits like emotional self-regulation, leadership, and teamwork, among others. He plans to create handbooks describing his model and sharing them with gyms for implementation in the coming months.
Maurio chose to study at Wesleyan because of the flexibility that the open curriculum permits. He intends to major in psychology in college to support his goal of doing community development work as a career, he said.
