An Arnold barber shop is donating half the money from hair cuts to help find the Nottingham School of Boxing a new home.
A Crowdfunder website has been set up by founder of Nottingham charity Switch Up, Marcellus Baz.
Baz wants to raise £450,000 to buy the Pakistan Centre in St Ann’s.
The boxing school currently resides in the centre’s basement on a six-month lease after being forced out of its original home at the Sycamore Millennium Centre, St Ann’s, following tenancy issues.
And from today (February 8), Jo’s Barber Shop, in Beechwood Road, will donate half the money accrued when members of the boxing school come in for a trim.
Owner of the shop, Joanne Clarke, said her husband, Gary, read about the work of the boxing school and they proceeded to take their son, Charlie, along to one of the sessions.
Seven-year-old Charlie has now been boxing for a month.
She said: “When we were there, we thought it was a really good cause after hearing everything about it and we just wanted to get Charlie involved in a really inspiring club.
“It’s a good place to go, the people there are really inspiring and encouraging – not just on the athletics side, but helping them to develop as people. It’s a really nice set-up and all the people are really positive.
“Whatever haircuts I do, on people that are from the school of boxing, all of those proceeds will go to the Nottingham School of Boxing.
“Anybody else can donate anything they want, too.”
Baz previously told Notts TV News: “We want that permanent security where we don’t have to keep looking over our shoulder and thinking ‘we’ve got to find somewhere else’.
“Things have been chaotic since we had to move out of the Sycamore Centre; over the festive period we had to look around a load of different places to relocate.
“I want to make sure that we’ve got somewhere for young people to go; it’s really important to have continuity and consistency for them.”
Joanne said Gary and his father are both avid boxing fans, with the latter placing a £10 bet, when Charlie was 18 weeks old, on his grandson one day becoming world heavyweight champion.
“Whether that transpires, I don’t know,” Joanne said, “He might be good at boxing, he might not.
“But it’s something he’s enjoying at the moment and he’s only just taken it up. Who knows?”
The school was set up to steer young people away from crime and to take part in boxing and other sports.
Because of his work, Marcellus Baz received a British Empire Medal in the Queen’s New Year Honours and also received the BBC Sports Personality’s Unsung Hero of the Year award in December 2016.
