Aaron McLaurine is changing lives through boxing.
Boxing teaches skills that can help children deal with life, according to Aaron McLaurine. He told Lima Rotary Club Monday that nearly 250 children a week attend his Soldiers of Honor Boxing Gym.
McLaurine, who joined Lima Rotary Club in February 2017, owns New Look Fitness Gym and serves as an associate pastor at Faith Ministries International and chaplain in several area businesses. He uses the gym as the home base for Soldiers of Honor, where he passes on lessons he’s learned over a lifetime of boxing.
“The more I fought, the harder I studied,” McLaurine said of his young boxing career and earning a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering technologies from Bowling Green State University, and a two-year technical degree in Electronic Engineering from Lima Technical College (now Rhodes State University).
At one point, McLaurine was ranked No. 32 in the world and No. 3 in Ohio as he fought for three world titles. Soldiers of Honor serves children at Heir Force School and in an after-school program. He uses the gym and boxing to improve children’s self-control, focus, self-confidence, and self-esteem.
Children feel better, look better with improved physical well-being, and think more clearly as they relieve frustration and anger, he said.
Soldiers of Honor is a faith-based operation that uses boxing as a tool to reach kids, McLaurine said, to address strategies for addressing challenges out of the ring.
In other Rotary business Monday:
Dr. Suman Mishr who is coordinating a delegation of business people from Varanasi, India to Lima in July, talked with the club. Last year, a group from Lima visited Varanasi as the two cities established a Sister City relationship.
Mishr, an endocrinologist from Cridersville, is looking for host families for 12 to 15 visitors. He also is looking for activities for the group while they visit, including factory and business tours and activities for them to network with people living here.