Breaking boards to support orphanages around the world

By: Natalie Shelton

The concept sounds ironic: Students at two local martial arts academies have been breaking boards to build orphanages.

ATA Karate For Kids, with studios in Liberty and Gladstone, recently participated in a Board Breakathon at Crown Center, where 10 martial arts schools gathered for a fund-raising event for the Kansas City-based HALO Foundation. HALO stands for Helping Art Liberate Orphans, and the organization provides shelter, food, water, clothing, education and art therapy for orphans around the world.

The Liberty and Gladstone students raised about $2,000, said HALO founder Rebecca Neuenswander. The 10 schools collectively raised about $32,000, which helps HALO support orphanages in Africa, Mexico, Cambodia, Nicaragua and India.

During the breakathon, more than 1,000 students ages 2 to 70 had up to 30 seconds to break as many boards as possible and collected pledges for the cause. Joe Duncan raised the most money for the Liberty karate school, and Alex Silva was the top money-maker for Gladstone.

Neuenswander, a third-degree black belt, said Jack Wenenn, owner of the two martial arts academies, had been supportive of the breakathon even though his family had been dealing with an automobile accident that left his 19-year-old daughter seriously injured last year just days before a previous breakathon.

“I grew up all over the Midwest and earned my first black belt under him. I learned so much about leadership; he literally changed my life,” Neuenswander said. “I hadn’t seen him for a long time, but when I ran into him again and told him about the breakathon, he said, ‘I’ll do anything you want.’ Even with all his family’s been through, he’s saying to me, ‘Thank you for letting us be a part of this.’”

Wenenn, who also recently opened a martial arts academy in Smithville, said his daughter’s accident prompted him to participate even more in helping the HALO Foundation.

“She’s pretty much been the strength behind our schools doing this,” he said of his daughter. “She’s really pushed us to help. We feel that regardless of what we’ve been through, kids throughout the world need shelter and are starving. We’ve had so much understanding and support after her accident, and we feel that what goes around comes around.”

Neuenswander began the foundation in 2004 after acting and modeling work in Chicago left her unfulfilled, she said. Her desire to make a difference first led her to Honduras and Guatemala for six months as she worked with orphanages there.

“I came back here, and trying to relate to some adults about my experience was really hard,” she said. “The kids, though, seem to just jump right in and ask, ‘What can we do to help?’”

She said she had been uplifted by the creativity of the martial arts kids in raising money.

“I’ve heard them do things like raise $250 just by selling hot chocolate,” she said. “The things they’ve come up with have really been inspiring.”

Staff writer Natalie Shelton can be reached at 781-4941 or nshelton@npgco.com.