Premier Youth & Community Center in its second year helping Quaker Valley area youths

A former amateur boxer has turned a facility tucked to the side of Chadwick Street by a ball field in Sewickley into a place of fitness and fellowship.

Jaryd Boyer runs the Premier Youth & Community Center. The nonprofit is in its second year in the borough at the Sewickley Community Center.

It was formerly at the Hopewell Shopping Center.

The center hosts all-day sports camps, youth and family bowling leagues and youth and family boxing programs among other activities. About 150 to 200 kids participate in the camps.

A member of Revival Today Church in Coraopolis, Boyer instills a message of faith into his programs.

“There always has to be a messenger whether people believe in God or not,” he said.

Boyer, 41, pulls from life experiences to relate to youths from various backgrounds.

He said he went through hardships moving from town to town throughout Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. He graduated from Cornell High School in 2000.

“I was jumping around all over the tri-state area,” he said. “My parents moved a lot. I never really was planted anywhere. I was a kid who didn’t know any better.

“I grew up learning how to take and not be a giver because that’s how you survive; just take what you gotta take. Ultimately, Jesus saved my life because I couldn’t save my own life.”

Boyer said he had a dream in 2014 that inspired him to start a boxing gym. The next year he opened Premier Fight Club on New York Avenue in Rochester with former world lightweight champion Paul Spadafora.

Within a few years, it evolved into Premier Fitness and Boxing Club as a way to help get Beaver County youths off the streets.

Boyer met with a pastor during that time and reflected on his life. Those discussions helped change his path to service.

“I remembered all the times that I should be dead, but Jesus was with me in all that,” Boyer said. “Before, everything was about me. Now I knew that it wasn’t about me. It was about what God saved me from so I could help those people who need it. You don’t know until you go through it.”

Boyer developed more programs and eventually founded Premier Youth & Community Center.

He moved to Sewickley so his children could attend Quaker Valley School District.

Boyer is assisted in his efforts by volunteers including Sewickley native Pamela Squires, who first got involved in one of PYCC’s sports camps.

“Through a friend, I was introduced to Jaryd Boyer sometime last year,” Squires recalled. “Upon hearing his story and seeing what he had accomplished just by word of mouth, I decided to volunteer.

“Within the first hour, I knew I wanted to support this incredible effort. Jayrd’s influence and positivity with the kids were unique and something special. The kids listened to every word and watched him, and their joy was overwhelming.

“His positive message got through. No electronics, no phones — just plain old ‘kid fun.’”

Boyer said Quaker Valley folks have been very generous to his program.

“There’s people that want to see change happen,” he said. “They want a real place. A raw place. Something that’s going to help the kids.”

PYCC’s summer mentorship program, Mindset of a Leader, is scheduled for 6-8 p.m. June 11 through Aug. 1.

It’s free for teens.

The eight-week program is one of the cornerstones of the center. It’s designed to initiate personal reflection and encourage group engagement in order to grow the mind, body and spirit.

Topics include “failing forward,” goal setting, “you win or you learn,” self-talk/self-thought and how words matter.

More information is available at pyccenter.org or email info@pyccenter.org.