Justin Haile’s 4th Avenue Gym Foundation raises over $78,500 for high school sports through truck raffle

Haile continues to serve the local community through the 4th Avenue Athletic fund

YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA) - Justin Haile is more than the owner of 4th Avenue Gym.

He continues to go above and beyond, giving back to the local high school athletic community.

This year, Haile raised $78,540 for high school athletics from a truck raffle, and believes he made over $140,000 through donations and fundraisers throughout the entire year.

All the money raised during the year, gets split evenly between the eight local high schools.

In terms of the truck raffle, because Yuma Catholic sold the most tickets, they get an additional $5,000 towards athletic gear of their choice.

Haile is ecstatic about crushing the goal he set for himself and praises the community for the support in his foundation.

"I'm just happy that everyone continues to believe in me. I've had a mission to try to help out the schools over the last nine years, and the people continue to believe," Haile said. "I had the truck raffle idea and you know, obviously Alexander believed in me and donated the truck and also the community believed in me and was able to buy this many tickets, so it was a huge number, and I'm just looking forward to kind of giving the money back and doing the right thing."

And he looks to continue to do the "right thing" and donate in year 10 of his foundation.

In addition to high schools, Haile hopes to expand to elementary schools too.

"The main thing is, we're always striving to do bigger numbers, and we're always trying to work harder to make it happen for the youth," Haile said. "The state of Arizona cut off all funding to athletics in 2008, so what we do right now for a charity for our school athletics is more than what the state does."