Our Hunger & Action gym philosophy for improvement is based on boxing and general fitness fun. Hunger & Action Gym is open from 5 am until midnight. Our members have key fob access to the facility so people from every lifestyle can work on goals during hours best for them. We offer classes for all ages from elementary school ages to adults and senior citizens.
Northwest Arkansas is now over 500,000 people and growing, so I see the potential for my small Latino owned business. Our membership was growing each month before the pandemic hit, and now in 2021 is finally starting to grow each month again. Our morning/day HIIT Boxing/Fitness classes are for an intense shorter exercise session. Our evening classes are more focused on the youth and offer a variety of fitness activities like punching bag work, jump roping, running, footwork drills.
We also have a class that is just a “Stay Active” general one for kids that the parents just want to be involved in getting their exercise for the day but also builds other good habits, like hard work and discipline by just coming to the gym to lift weights and get advice on nutrition and try classes. We offer an amateur competitive boxing class and provide amateur competition events around Arkansas and hopefully soon to more states. We have been working with The Washington Juvenile Detention Center where its staff brings kids here to be involved in positive activities, proactively exposing them to things that they might have not been able to be a part of there.
Mariano’s story
Hi, my name is Mariano and I am the owner of Hunger & Action fitness gym in Springdale, Arkansas. I was born in California but was raised here after my parents relocated in my youth. Although I came from living in a trailer park in the City of Compton being raised by two immigrant parents, I learned to respect, love for others, and humility, and strong faith in God. I have experienced violence, gangs, and criminal activity. I have many friends who experienced the same from where they moved.
Thankfully, here we got involved in the world of boxing and a great man named Robert coached us and instilled discipline, hard work, overall genuine kindness when he self-built a backyard boxing gym for us. I graduated from a local alternative school, became a father at a young age, and then began striving for a better future for my child and her mother. I realized how boxing had helped me to not only graduate high school but have the confidence to now attend business classes at the University of Arkansas and open my own gym. I give back to my community youth by providing a place for Hispanic and Latinx persons to come together in a positive and healthy place, and we were voted “Best Number 1 Gym in Northwest Arkansas” recently. The gym was a perfect platform for me and my friends to help the youth struggling like we were helped and to help anyone with personal health goals be surrounded by positivity by turning their “Hunger” into “Action”. In our two years of being open, I can say we have impacted many lives for the better with our program outreach to the area Juvenile Detention Facility, our amateur boxing classes, and our adult HIIT classes.