VERO BEACH — Boxers from the Sweet Science Training Center set up a boxing ring at Humiston Park in Vero Beach Tuesday evening in hopes of giving cancer the “K.O.” The small, husband-wife-owned center has joined with the Buggy Bunch to form a Relay For Life of the Beaches team and is working to raise money before the April 13 Relay event at Riverside Park.
“We want to knock out cancer,” said Sweet Science co-owner Lucina Gray. “We’re out here to catch everyone’s eye.”
While the boxers gave demonstrations and allowed passersby to try their hand at the sport, the main fund raising was happening across the street at Nino’s Café, where owner Croce Giambanco would donate 50 percent of his night’s proceeds to the team.
Barely 6 p.m. and the eatery was already filling up with customers and doing a brisk business with pizzas walking out the door.
“It’s a good cause,” Giambanco said of helping the American Cancer Society’s annual Relay For Life event. “I think everyone should be involved.”
Giambanco got involved in this particular fundraiser because he and his daughter, Maria, train at the Sweet Science Training Center.
“They’re very involved in the community,” he said of the boxers. “They’re great people.”
As for helping Relay For Life, Giambanco said that his family has been affected in many ways by cancer.
“This is one of the charities close to me,” he said.
It’s personal for Lucina Gray, as well, who lost her grandmother to cancer. But, more than that, several of the boxers they train at the center are, themselves, cancer survivors.
“We like to support the survivors,” she said.
Gray said they got involved in Relay For Life when one of their trainees asked about forming a team.
Melissa Reynolds, a member of the Buggy Bunch and a boxer at the center, wanted to get a team going there. Reynolds is the activities chair for the Relay For Life of the Beaches event and, as such, is working to form more and more teams before April 13.
“I try to get everybody I can involved,” Reynolds said.
For a small business such as Sweet Science, Reynolds noted that participating in the Relay event would not only help the American Cancer Society, but also the business itself, opening it up to more potential trainees.
“It’s good exposure in the community,” she said.
As for the boxing activity at Humiston Park, Reynolds said you could draw the parallel between the fight in the ring and the fight with cancer – staying focused and never giving up.
Sweet Science Training Center plans to hold a demonstration on the stage during the Relay event and offer participants a way to work out some stress by pounding a punching bag at their campsite.
The Relay For Life of the Beaches event will be held at Riverside Park in Vero Beach starting at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public to attend and watch. They are encouraged to purchase refreshments and take part in teams’ activities, helping those teams reach their fundraising goals.
For more information about the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life events, visit www.RelayForLife.org.
