Tottenville Boxing Gym Blends Jabs and Self-Belief for Staten Islanders With Disabilities

An unlikely alliance in a Staten Island boxing gym is granting young New Yorkers with disabilities greater confidence, community, and a fighting chance at inclusion.

On a muggy summer afternoon on Staten Island, the raucous thwack of boxing gloves against heavy bags mixes with the determined voices of children whose struggles rarely garner headlines. Inside DeMarco’s Boxing Club in Tottenville, a unique enterprise is underway: local kids and adults with disabilities, especially those on the autism spectrum, are sharpening not only their left hooks but also their sense of self-worth. Such scenes are markedly rare in the sporting annals of New York City, and rarer still when inclusivity is more than mere slogan.

The club’s transformation began in earnest in August 2024, when Nicholas DeMarco, owner and longtime trainer, joined forces with Salvatore Mosomillo, a social worker versed in mental health therapy for children with intellectual disabilities. Together, the pair launched “Camp by DeMarco’s Boxing,” a twice-weekly programme offering boxing sessions tailored to varying ability levels—some pupils as young as four, others well into adulthood. The aim, DeMarco insists, is as much about building confidence and social skills as teaching a proper jab.

Popular perceptions of boxing often dwell on violence and risk; at best, the sport conjures images of toughened youth in hardscrabble gyms. Yet the reality inside this Staten Island club is strikingly different. A mix of amateur fighters and newcomers—including many with minimal athletic background—melds into a sense of community where children accustomed to social isolation find a second home. “They come out of the gym feeling strong and confident,” says Mr Mosomillo, “and for their families, that transformation is palpable.”

Parents, initially wary of the sport’s intimidating reputation, now heap praise on the unlikely duo. One mother recently credited the training she received at DeMarco’s for boosting her son’s confidence—an emotional payoff that rivals any trophy. The club has thus become not just a place to punch, but to belong; teenagers and young adults who once struggled with social cues now interact with peers, amateur athletes, and coaches on equal footing.

The implications for New York City, a metropolis lauded and lamented in equal measure for its competitive edge, are twofold. On the one hand, initiatives like this portend a shift in how special needs are accommodated in the city’s crowded recreational landscape. For decades, access to inclusive sport programs has been spotty, hampered by cost, facility limitations, and lingering social stigmas. According to New York’s Department of Health, only 18% of children with disabilities participate in organised sports, less than half the rate for their non-disabled peers.

On the other hand, boxing’s unlikely embrace of neurodiverse participants may bode well for the city’s broader ambitions. Mental health data from the CDC reveal that anxiety and depression remain elevated among children and young adults with autism and other developmental disorders. Providing activities that increase self-regulation, social interaction, and physical fitness—qualities the pugilists of Tottenville now champion—could reduce reliance on more costly interventions down the road.

For Staten Island, the most suburban—and, by some measures, insular—of the five boroughs, the club’s efforts chip away at both physical and psychological boundaries. Elsewhere in New York, most adaptive sports offerings for people with disabilities cluster around the Manhattan nonprofit sector or via public schools, leaving many families in the outer boroughs reliant on piecemeal programming. That a commercial gym would voluntarily cultivate such an environment, without expensive consultants or government grants, hints at a shift in entrepreneurial as well as social priorities.

The economic consequences, while modest for now, merit notice. The cost for participation at DeMarco’s is kept manageable, a rarity in a city where adaptive therapy or private clubs often exact a puny fortune from anxious parents. Lower barriers of entry and the use of existing infrastructure—boxing rings and gyms more accustomed to Golden Gloves—help ensure the programme’s sustainability without the largesse of city coffers. In a time of budget squeezes (Mayor Adams cut $4 billion from the Department of Education in 2023 alone), such models warrant careful replication.

A quiet punch above its weight

Nationally, New York’s experiment is neither isolated nor unprecedented; London’s famed Fight for Peace Academy and various Los Angeles programmes have tested similar models, albeit with tepid traction. Where New York’s scheme seems to differ is in the acute integration of social work expertise alongside traditional coaching. Mosomillo’s day job as a therapist enriches the routines: sessions incorporate stress regulation, peer support, and gradual mastery—not the “no pain, no gain” mantras that too often deter newcomers.

There are obvious limitations. A single club cannot match the gargantuan scale of unmet need across a city with over 200,000 children classified as learning disabled. Nor, barring uncharacteristically swift civic action at City Hall, will every neighbourhood acquire its own inclusive gym any time soon. But reforms in miniature occasionally indicate more tenable paths than the grand plans of chancellors or mayors.

For parents and carers, the club’s impact is unambiguous. Participating families report improved self-esteem, broader social networks, and the sort of child-parent victories—walking home with heads held higher—that health statistics rarely capture. Some of the children, drawn by the camaraderie as much as the fitness, return week after week, forging routines that endure beyond the gym.

Looking outward, New York’s case is a microcosm of a wider reckoning over how urban spaces, often hostile or indifferent to the disabled, might better foster inclusion. The model at DeMarco’s, anchored by local credibility rather than slick branding, cannot be franchised like a fitness chain. Yet its plain success highlights a truth sometimes lost in policy debates: that dignity is built in small, everyday triumphs, not just in proclamations from on high.

The lessons are not solely for would-be do-gooders or municipal bureaucrats. By expanding participation and lowering barriers, such initiatives create spillover benefits—healthier citizens, reduced pressure on public services, even, perhaps, a more cohesive city. As the old wisdom goes, the mark of a metropolis is how it treats its most vulnerable. On Staten Island, that test is being met, one punch at a time.

In a city famed for grit and frenzied striving, it may be Staten Island’s unassuming boxing gym—not its towers or ballot boxes—that lands the most quietly effective blow for inclusion. ■