Colton POA Donates Thousands in Fitness Equipment to CHS Football

Last month when Colton High School’s (CHS) football team received a donation of fitness equipment, it was a wish come true. The group had put out various fundraising efforts to raise money to purchase fitness equipment like weights for the football players to train with each week before their games, but when the Colton Police Department’s Police Officers Association (POA) let the team know they wanted to give them some equipment, it was “one less thing we had to worry about,” said CHS Head Football Coach Chris Mailo. Mailo and Sherri Villanueva, the football Boosters president, said the POA donated several weights including dumbbells, hand weights and weight trees of all weights. “The weight room looks totally different after the donation,” said Villanueva. Now, instead of having to take turns using the equipment during their training sessions—the team works out Mondays through Thursdays and has games on Fridays—”Several boys can lift at once,” said Villanueva. “The kids were ecstatic about it,” Mailo said. “We’d been working hard to raise funds and get these kids equipment to train on, so when we received it, it was one more thing we could cross off our list.” In all, Mailo estimated that the team received approximately $10,000 in donated weight-room equipment. The POA came to Coach Mailo and offered to donate the equipment to the team after the POA closed down their gym in a space near Citizen’s Bank, shared Corporal Curtis Bayer. “The building will change hands, so we were moving locations,” said Bayer. “We have a gym in the [police] station now, so we had all this extra good-quality [equipment] like barbells and such.” Since he leads a rugby team in the city, Bayer said he had taken notice of the high school’s need for weight-training equipment. “The kids have to wait sometimes 10 to 15 minutes just to get on a station. [The Association] talked about it and we thought that was far better than to just sell [the equipment].” The Colton Police Department has forged a reputation for its involvement with the city and its youth, and the donation was another example of their involvement. Bayer noted that budget cuts have affected the department’s ability to maintain youth programs. “The Colton Police Officer’s Association has always supported youth either monetarily or with personnel,” he said. Villanueva finished, “They even donated the radio they used when they worked out. The boys were excited about it.”