Springhealth Kickboxing owner Audifax Kinga says the independent club is a beacon for community

AN INDEPENDENT kickboxing club that has been training kids for the past 25 years is fundraising to stay open.

Springhealth Kickboxing in York Way is raising money to keep afloat following financial difficulty brought on by the pandemic.

The gym has been in business for 25 years but took a hit during Covid due to the lack of incoming revenue.

Despite looking for financial aid from multiple sources, they needed an extra boost, prompting owner Audifax Kinga, a British and World Champion, to set up a fundraising page.

Although hesitant about the fundraising page, Mr Kinga emphasised that he wanted to keep the doors open for its patrons as the gym was a beacon for community.

Kickboxing training in the York Way gym

He said: “What we do is merely a sidenote to the people that come in and make the gym a special place. Everyone feels welcome. It’s the people that make it special, and the people love the place.

“The community we have here, we do everything right together in a sense. It’s not a big community, it’s a small community, we know each other. We go to each other’s birthday parties. We go to each other’s weddings. We are all here for each other.”

Within the first week of funding, the page had already raised 15 per cent of their £11,000 goal. They are currently only £500 away from achieving that goal.

Since setting up the page, Mr Kinga has heard several heartfelt stories from students who joined the gym.

He said: “People came here at a low point in their lives and they discovered ‘Hey, I can be part of a community. People are here to help me, I can help people.’ People have come here that didn’t exercise before, and now they are helping me teach classes.

“So it’s a community where people can learn and grow and help. Everyone is always giving back, and I don’t say that lightly.

“It’s all about paying it forward and that’s sort of what this community does, it pays it forward.”

He added: “I want more people to have access to it. One of the things is, people come here and they say ‘Oh my God, I didn’t know this place was here, and I’ve lived here for three years’. I want people to be aware of the place, and to have it be somewhere that people come down, learn a skill, meet new people, make some friends and become part of a community.”