Eugenia Phelan, Champion for Charity fighter, cherishes a life-long bond with boxing
By Jeff Hicks
BEAMSVILLE —
At 4:30 a.m., the bedside alarm blares with the feral ferocity of a clout to the jaw.
Two minutes later, a weary Eugenia Phelan rises.
Music? You’ve got to be kidding.
“Just a hardcore, in-your-face alarm to get me up,” said Phelan, a 42-year-old Grimsby financial advisor and one of Mandy Bujold’s 20 Champions for Charity making their first foray into the boxing ring to fight and fundraise for MacKids.
For 16 weeks, this is her routine most weekdays.
On the other side of an ear-splitting buzzer is a 100-plus kilometre drive to Sydfit Health Centre in Kitchener to train with the Red Team to step into the ring on April 24 at a sold-out Tapestry Hall in Cambridge.
“If I could live in a boxing gym, I would,” Phelan said. “I just love it that much.”
Sunshine and blue skies. Rain and snow. Sleet and ice.
Nature gave her the full flurry of weather combinations to steer through on her first day of training.
“It was every season in one drive.”
But an hour or two later, she was in her happy place on the gym floor inside an old ginger ale factory with the Red Team.
Phelan, who was born in Russia and moved to Niagara with her family at age 6, is committed to the sweet science she first became smitten with as she dabbled in jabs and hooks entering her teens.
She’s determined to add to the fundraising totals of Champions for Charity, which has raised over a million dollars for MacKids in its first three editions.
Eugenia and husband Mike volunteer at their local animal rescue. They have cats, not kids. But she is amazed how MacKids has helped so many humans in her life.
“It blows my mind that probably one out of every 2 friends of mine have an experience with it,” she said.
Now, after re-igniting her heavy bag infatuation with boxing fitness classes in 2019, she is eager crush her ring debut for charity. Mike is a little more wary.
“He would love it if there was no opponent and I can figure out how to box without somebody else coming at me.” she said.
“He’s also my No. 1 cheerleader in all of this.”
Her mom Natalia is enthusiastically in her corner too. She is confident Eugenia will handle herself well in her bout. The boxing ring is a therapeutic sanctuary for her daughter. Just like the famous sodium deposits of their Russian hometown of Sol-Iletsk, a celebrated health destination for its mud baths and mineral-rich salt lakes.
Rocks and Stones have always rolled their way into Phelan’s life.
In 2011, Oscar-winning actress Emma Stone played a character named Eugenia Phelan in a move called The Help.
“What are the odds?” Phelan said. “I’ve never heard of another Eugenia with Phelan as the last name. That’s insane.”
To Support Eugenia, click here.
Thank you to our Champions Spotlight Sponsor TD Bank. TD sees the challenges women-owned and woman-led businesses face – but we also see, and can help you seize, the opportunities. That’s why we’ve built a Canada-wide team of Women in Enterprise bankers to provide you with the banking advice, tools, and resources to help you confidently build your business. Learn more. Don’t hesitate to reach out to Julie Dimitri, National Manager, Women in Enterprise.
