Justin Perkins - Founder, Executive director

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After realizing the level of accountability and discipline that wrestling instilled, he and his wife began to look into the inner city’s obstacles; They noticed that it was in desperate need of the skills and sense of community that wrestling could provide. They returned to Homewood and found that amount of accessible youth programs were scarce; the programs that were offered, were football, basketball, and short-season baseball programs. From his experience, football and basketball were sports that overemphasized “size matters”, and would ultimately deprive many children of mentorship through athletics; especially for students moving on from middle school. One of his beliefs was that wrestling has a place for everyone to participate and succeed, both boys and girls. Wrestling was the sport that would give more children a chance to feel accepted and embraced.

In 2014, Justin and Ania began to lobby for the sport to be accepted in the city. The Westinghouse Youth Wrestling program (WYW) was brought into existence in 2015. The non-profit program not only offered wrestling, and included outside recreation such as fishing, outdoor fitness. The program also provides studies and skills within mentorship, healthy living, violence prevention, gender equality and ethnic diversity practices. Since 2013, they have serviced over 200+ families per year in the grassroots programming. These activities began as Homewood targeted ideas, but after the success of the programming, they began to service children from multiple inner-city neighborhoods and surrounding areas within Western Pennsylvania. Westinghouse Youth Wrestling has been recognized by local high school and collegiate wrestlers and coaches, law enforcement officers, nutritionists and motivational speakers. Justin has built the WYW staff with a strong nucleus of volunteers who work diligently to see change in our city. 

Justin truly believes that some of the same qualities of a productive wrestler are the same qualities of a productive citizen; accountability, along with self-sufficiency, integrity, discipline, self-control, respect and humility just to name a few. These qualities are beneficial to the well being of a healthy community. This standard formula and template became a foundation for what Justin Perkins prides himself on teaching life preparation through wrestling and his year-round enrichment activities.