Q: Tell us about you and the organization you work for.

I’m Ian Kilpatrick, and I’m the head of development at Inner City Weightlifting in Boston.

Inner City Weightlifting’s mission is to amplify the voice and agency of those most impacted by mass incarceration, systemic racism in general — and more specifically, people most impacted by street violence, in Boston and beyond. And the way we do that is through our personal training apprenticeship program. Our gyms serve as social enterprises for the people in our program to take on personal training clients, so they can build their client base and career.

Q: What brings you joy at ICW?

When young people are lost to violence in Boston, there’s almost always a connection to someone at ICW. We’re here for them, if they need to cry or anything like that. That tenderness [to feel] isn’t always seen, but we see it, because we actually allow [people] into our doors with open arms and open hearts. If we’re closing our hearts just based off of stigmas and statistics or fear, we’re not doing anyone a service. When we start othering people… and using fear as a way to create separation, it’s just not good for anyone or any community, regardless of how much privilege or resources you have. We try to be that bridge between those different divisions, regardless of what they are, and most of it happens in the gym.

That’s what brings me joy, those moments where it kind of all clicks together. The model goes bigger than someone hitting a personal record at the deadlift, which is great, but it’s so much bigger than that.

Q: What is a meaningful transformation that your work makes possible?

A lot of the people, especially the younger people in our program, ages 18-22, don’t really know what they want and they’ve never actually even thought about it because they’re in survival mode from staying safe in their neighborhoods and getting back and forth [between] different places.

We pride ourselves on being able to help them with whatever they are figuring out [that] they need or want. We’re there from the beginning of them having a mental shift — we call it ‘from trust to hope.’ The hope part of our program is realizing that, like, ‘Oh, [I] can do it!’ It’s not just other people that they see. They can actually do the thing. That sounds small, but when you don’t have any examples of anything else, then it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, I can do that.’

Q: What do you wish more people knew about the young people you work with?

I wish they knew how similar they are to them.

There’s people that are really geographically close together that have these imaginary barriers that society, and Boston in particular, put up through years of segregation and racial inequities. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to create a safe place where the clients can get their perspective shifted and get healthy or fit at the same time.

Meanwhile, the trainers are getting access to a new network. A major systemic issue is the barrier to networks. They only know the people in their neighborhoods. Then all of a sudden, through ICW, they know CEOs of tech companies and founders of biotech research, because that’s what’s in the area, and that’s what’s near our gym.

Clients think they’re paying [trainers] for their fitness expertise, which they are — but what they don’t realize is that they’re not only getting their expertise, they are getting their lived experience.

More on InnerCity Weightlifting.

InnerCity Weightlifting is an Accelerator alum and Growth Portfolio member that partners with program participants to build careers in and beyond personal training.