A Worthy Fight

For one night each summer, Kansas City police officers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel trade in their uniforms for boxing gloves in one of the city’s longest-running charity traditions. 

The annual Guns N Hoses charity boxing event returned in June, bringing together first responders across the city for a series of amateur boxing matches to raise money for the Surviving Spouse and Family Endowment, a program of the Kansas City Metropolitan Crime Commission that provides immediate financial assistance to families of first responders who are killed or suffer career-ending injuries in the line of duty.

The boxing may be the night’s main attraction, but Guns N Hoses has become a community tradition that brings together friends, family members and fellow first responders. Many of the boxers spend months training for their bouts, and the friendly rivalry between police and fire departments adds to the excitement. But the competition takes a backseat to the event’s true purpose: supporting families of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their communities.

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• Dawnya Bartsch, editor-in-chief, editor@kansascitymag.com

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