Youngstown native and former middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik has been looking to make the most of his post-boxing life.

After retirement, Pavlik decided to work on a program to help area youth.

“I was fortunate enough to work my butt off and do what I did to retire at 30,” Pavlik said. “Now this is a project that I’m seeing through. (I’ve been) really spread thin on it, but it’s a big project. I’ve accomplished my goals in boxing, and now this is like a new part (of my life) where I’ve got another project to drive, and I’m determined to make sure that this runs.”

Since his retirement in 2013, Pavlik has been building up the Kelly Pavlik Charitable Organization over the years.

Running a gym in Columbiana County, the MI Gym, which has been his base of operations, Pavlik has been working on expanding north.

They’re nearing completion on a facility on the south side of Boardman, but the goal is to have facilities in Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana Counties to provide a wide variety of services.

“The plan right now is to add three more throughout the Tri-County area,” Pavlik said. “The overall picture of my charitable organization is to have one main building in Mahoning County, two hubs in Trumbull County and two hubs in Columbiana County so that these kids can have a place to go. Not a lot of kids from East Liverpool are going to be able to come to Boardman and a lot of kids from Cortland, or even Niles are going to be able to come to Boardman, so I want to be able to take my services to them.”

Those services include tutoring, counseling, after school meal programs, health and wellness, and then of course, boxing, which will be in Mahoning County.

Currently, the biggest obstacle is on the financial side. He’s had help from state Rep. Lauren McNally, D-Youngstown, but expansion requires finances.

“I wanted to get this started, start getting the kids in and get the boxing going as well to let people know that we have boxing,” Pavlik said. “This will eventually shift to the main facility here in Boardman, and we’re hoping sooner than later on that. I’m kind of funding all of this. This gym, the other gym — I’m funding the entire program with 35 active kids in the program. Equipment is getting banged up, all that. … We’re really hopeful for that push to get it moving, but once it starts rolling pretty quickly, I think it’s going to be a great thing.”

In an effort to raise funds and awareness for his organization, Pavlik is putting on a fight night on Friday.

In a way, between starting up a gym and putting on this event, Pavlik has taken up the torch in keeping amateur boxing in the Youngstown area around, something he doesn’t take lightly.

“(I wanted to) bring real boxing, amateur boxing in. We haven’t really seen it in a while,” Pavlik said. “This is my first fight. I believe we’ve got six national champions on this card and a couple ranked matches, it’s going to be something different. I really want to show the local people who do support boxing, people put on show fights all the time and have great turnouts. The support is there but I want to be able to really show them amateur boxing at an elite level. I want to get a couple more guys on, but I think we got some real talent.”

On the card are a number of fighters, including area champion Zion Hensley, and a handful of fighters from Cleveland and Michigan. The event starts at 6 p.m. at the Embassy in Boardman.

byauger@tribtoday.com