CHOOSE STRENGTH OVER THE STREETS
Building discipline, confidence, and direction through fitness and mentorship.
The Fitness Over Firearms Foundation is dedicated to empowering youth in Milwaukee and surrounding communities through fitness by providing structure, accountability, mentorship, and a positive outlet that helps build confidence, discipline, and stronger futures.
About Fitness Over Firearms Foundation:
Fitness Over Firearms Foundation
Fitness Over Firearms Foundation exists to help youth and young adults build stronger futures through fitness, mentorship, discipline, and personal development.
Founded by Karl Stauffacher, the organization was created from his own experience and a deep understanding of how easily young people can lose direction without guidance, structure, and positive influences. He has seen the positive effects from working out himself the past 25 years, and working professionally with clients for over 17 years. Our mission is to provide an alternative path rooted in accountability, confidence, respect, and purpose.
At Fitness Over Firearms, we believe fitness is more than physical training. It is a powerful tool that teaches life skills, builds self-worth, and creates mental resilience. Through mentorship programs, fitness training, community engagement, and positive role modeling, we want to help young people develop the strength needed to make better decisions and create lasting change in their lives.
Our mission is to help youth experience firsthand how fitness can improve mental health, confidence, discipline, and self-worth. Empowering individuals to make positive choices for their future.
We are committed to creating environments where youth feel supported, challenged, and empowered to grow into leaders within their communities. By combining fitness with mentorship, we help participants build strength, confidence, accountability, respect, empowerment, and discipline.
The qualities that inspire healthier choices, personal growth, and leadership within communities.
We believe every young person deserves:
Positive mentorship and guidance
A safe place to grow and be challenged
Healthy outlets for stress, emotions, and adversity
Opportunities to build confidence and self-discipline
Structure, accountability, and leadership development
Supportive communities that inspire growth
The mental and physical benefits of fitness
Encouragement to make positive life choices
The empowerment to believe in themselves
The opportunity to create a stronger future
Fitness Over Firearms Foundation believes fitness builds more than muscles. It builds Strength, Confidence, Accountability, Respect, Empowerment, and Discipline, helping youth develop the tools needed to overcome adversity and become leaders within their communities.
Our Core Values - S.C.A.R.E.D.
S — Strength
C — Confidence
A — Accountability
R — Respect
E — Empowerment
D — Discipline
Our Mission
Our mission is to use fitness and mentorship as tools to help youth and young adults develop confidence, discipline, resilience, and self-worth so they can overcome adversity and create positive futures.
Our Vision
A future where young people embrace fitness early in life, understand its physical and mental benefits, and use it as a foundation for healthier choices, stronger character, and brighter futures.
Impact Statement:
We build more than strength; we build discipline, confidence, and better choices for a stronger future.
WHY FITNESS OVER FIREARMS WAS CREATED
Fitness Over Firearms Foundation was created from a powerful realization:
Too many young people are making life-changing decisions before they ever discover their true value, purpose, or potential. Many are growing up surrounded by stress, violence, broken environments, mental health struggles, anxiety, depression, negative influences, and a lack of positive guidance; without understanding how to properly handle, process, or cope with those situations and emotions in a healthy way.
What many youth do not realize is that fitness can become more than exercise. It can become therapy, structure, confidence, stress relief, and a positive outlet.
Fitness has the power to help young people:
Build confidence and self-worth
Reduce stress and anxiety
Improve mental health and emotional control
Sleep better and think more clearly
Develop discipline and accountability
Create healthy routines and habits
Feel stronger physically and mentally
Discover purpose, leadership, and direction
Founder Karl Stauffacher understands this personally.
After overcoming difficult life experiences and rebuilding his own life through fitness, mentorship, and discipline, Karl became passionate about helping youth avoid destructive paths and discover the life-changing benefits that fitness can provide.
In November 2025, that mission became even more personal after Karl attempted to stop the carjacking of an elderly woman and was confronted by two armed teenagers.
That moment reinforced a painful reality:
Too many young people are searching for identity, confidence, purpose, and belonging in the wrong places.
Fitness Over Firearms Foundation was created to offer a better path. One built on mentorship, structure, accountability, confidence, empowerment, and discipline.
Because real change starts early.
Fitness can help save lives long before bad decisions become permanent consequences.
DON’T BE S.C.A.R.E.D. OF FITNESS.
Fitness builds Strength, Confidence, Accountability, Respect, Empowerment, and Discipline.
Life Skills
Decision-making
Goal Setting
Mentorship
Discipline
Respect
Accountability
Training
Strength
Conditioning
Workouts
Meet the Team
Karl Stauffacher - Founder
Karl Stauffacher is the founder of Fitness Over Firearms Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping youth and young adults build stronger futures through fitness, mentorship, and discipline.
Karl grew up with a strong family foundation and a passion for sports, particularly basketball. But during his younger years, poor decisions and unhealthy influences led him down a difficult path that ultimately forced him to rebuild his life from the ground up.
It was during those challenging seasons that Karl discovered the transformational life-changing power of fitness.
Fitness gave him structure, discipline, confidence, and purpose. It became the foundation that helped him transform his mindset, rebuild his future, and create a healthier direction for life.
After becoming a certified personal trainer, Karl began working at Anytime Fitness in 2011. In a full-circle moment, he later purchased the same gym in 2018 and has since dedicated his career to helping others improve their lives through health and fitness.
Today, Karl uses his story and experience to mentor youth, promote accountability, and help young people discover confidence and self-worth through positive habits and strong leadership.
Through Fitness Over Firearms Foundation, his mission is simple: to help the next generation build strength mentally, physically, and emotionally before destructive choices define their future.
Karl’s Core Message:
“Real strength is the ability to make the right choices when it matters most.”
Marco Metcalf - Coach & Mentor
Marco Metcalf serves as the Treasurer and one of the instructors for the Fitness Over Firearms Foundation.
He comes from a supportive family and was raised in Milwaukee's 53216 area, near 38th and Burleigh; an environment where he was exposed to violence, drugs, and unsafe conditions from a young age. Hearing gunshots, witnessing street activity, and experiencing loss shaped his perspective early and made him realize that the streets were not the path he wanted to follow.
At 17 years old, he started lifting weights and taking fitness seriously after suffering an injury playing high school basketball. What started as a setback became a turning point in his life, providing structure, discipline, and a positive outlet. Fitness helped him stay focused and grounded while growing up in a challenging environment.
That commitment ultimately led to him becoming a certified personal trainer through NASM at the age of 19, and it opened the door for him to begin his career at Anytime
Fitness in Brown Deer.
Marco has lost friends and loved ones to violence, drugs, and incarceration, and he uses those experiences as fuel to guide others toward a better path. His message to the youth is simple: choose God first, then choose fitness over the streets.
He serves as an associate minister at New Foundation Fellowship Church of God in Christ under the leadership of his grandfather, who is the senior pastor. In addition, he is currently pursuing a career with the Milwaukee Fire Department.
Maro’s Core Message:
“You don’t have to be a product of your environment, you can choose a different path and become the impact of your environment.”
Be Part of the Change - Donate
Your Support Helps Provide:
Mentorship
Fitness Training
Positive Role Models
Healthy Structure
Life Skills
Safe Environments
Confidence-Building Opportunities