Recent coverage of the proposed Emerald Views project mentioned an East Oakland boxing program being considered for support by Emerald View’s developers. Longtime East Oakland activist—and the program’s board chair—Frank Rose explains what the East Oakland Boxing Association/Smartmoves Program is all about and why it deserves support.

In her article “An emerald view or a gaze through a Coke bottle fragment?,” Naomi Schiff said:

In a bizarre moment, responding to a question about community benefits, consultant O’Donoghue talked about establishing a boxing gym (did I hear correctly that it was intended for young children, or did I conflate two of his remarks?) in East Oakland.

As chairman of the board of the referenced East Oakland boxing program, it seems appropriate to clear up questions about this program.

The Smartmoves Program, developed in 1995, is the education and arts project of the East Oakland Boxing Association (EOBA), a free youth organization that primarily serves children and youth ages 6–20. Our mission is to provide a safe and nurturing environment in which the children and youth of East Oakland can feel secure as they achieve success in school, learn life skills, and build self-esteem in preparation for their futures.

While seeking a broader venue to make an Equitable Development contribution that would enable the most needy youth and communities in Oakland to become better and safer, the Emerald Views developers were introduced to the East Oakland Boxing Association/Smartmoves Program. With guidance from Terra Linda Development Services, EOBA/Smartmoves was one of several worthy youth programs that the developers considered for their Equitable Development.

In their review they discovered that the EOBA/Smartmoves Program has provided free tutoring, mentoring, art, music, theater, computer skills, health, nutrition, exercise, and enrichment activities for children ages 5–15 for the past 20 years.

The EOBA/Smartmoves Program is located in Elmhurst, an East Oakland community where comprehensive academic programs and revitalized safehavens for youth—to counter the emotional and physical effects of daily exposure to poverty, violence, and crime—are sorely needed. More than 96 percent of the participants come from low-income households, 8 percent are in foster-care homes, and 83 percent of all participants have low academic performance. Nearly 8 percent are or have been in the juvenile system and 20 percent of participants have a classified form of disability. More than 36 percent of the youth are limited or non-English speaking or have non–English-speaking parents.

Why boxing?

The boxing program is a lure for those youth whom would not otherwise attend an academic program due to peer pressure.

A perfect example is Arnold, a hardened teenager who can tell all his friends: “I am going to the gym.” Instead, Arnold participates in the Smartmoves Program where he makes jewelry, completes his homework, focuses on arts and crafts, and has learned to sew and mend his clothing.

The East Oakland Boxing Association was founded in 1987 by former professional boxer Stanley Garcia in response to the community’s growing need for intensive youth development services. However, of the 650 youth that participate in Smartmoves each year, only about 5 percent actually box.

Smartmoves is a year-round program, operating after school and all day in the summer, developed to facilitate our youth’s success in schools by offering free tutoring, mentoring, arts and crafts, creative arts (such as dance, drama and theater), gardening and nutrition, computer training, field trips, backpacking excursions, youth leadership and internship opportunities, boxing instruction, and physical education.

Smartmoves provides high-quality, cost-efficient services to a neighborhood with few places that youth can simply drop by for food, shelter, and assistance in their studies and the encouragement to steer clear from crime and violence. There are no other free youth programs in close proximity to the East Oakland Boxing Association that offer and provide the services that these children need and deserve. Our location is easily accessible from the schools and neighborhoods by public transportation or by foot.

Each program day, we provide either a hot or cold meal as well as a healthy snack. We also host community holiday meals. As a distribution site for the federal Emergency Food Box Program implemented by the Alameda County Community Food Bank, we distribute over 3000 pounds of free nutritious food boxes to our participants’ families and the wider community.

We are the nonprofit sponsor for the East Oakland Senior Center Certified Farmer’s Market. We host a Farmer’s Market on the third Wednesday of each month, and distribute $20 Senior Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) checkbooks to low income seniors. Our youth also learn to run a small business by selling fresh fruits and vegetables from our garden and handmade jewelry/crafts from our art classes.

We implement mandatory violence prevention and anger management curriculum with all our participants.

Our funders include Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, Alameda County Department of Public Health, Bay Area Nutrition and Physical Activity Collaboration, Crescent Porter Hale, Dreyer’s Foundation, David B. Gold Foundation, East Bay Community Foundation, Firedoll Foundation, Justice for Athletes, Kids Educational Development Scholarship, Northern California Grantmakers Summer Youth Project, Roger’s Family Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, Weed and Seed, YH Soda Foundation, and numerous individual donors from the community.