CHOOSE STRENGTH OVER THE STREETS
Building discipline, confidence, and direction through fitness and mentorship.
Fitness Over Firearms Foundation is dedicated to helping youth in Milwaukee and surrounding communities avoid negative paths by giving them structure, accountability, and a positive outlet through fitness.
We do more than train bodies... We build mindset, discipline, and self-respect!
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 lived experience and a deep understanding of how easily young people can lose direction without guidance, structure, and positive influences. 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 help young people develop the strength needed to make better decisions and create lasting change in their lives.
Our goal is to intervene early before poor choices become lifelong consequences.
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 discover discipline, confidence, emotional control, and a sense of belonging.
We believe every young person deserves:
Positive mentorship
Healthy outlets for stress and emotion
Opportunities for growth
A supportive community
The confidence to choose a better path
Fitness Over Firearms Foundation stands as a reminder that real strength is not found in violence or fear — it is found in discipline, self-respect, and the ability to make the right choices when it matters most.
Our Core Values
Discipline
Accountability
Confidence
Respect
Empowerment
Leadership
Personal Growth
Our Mission
To guide youth and young adults toward healthier, more productive futures through fitness, mentorship, and positive life development.
Our Vision
A future where young people build confidence, purpose, and resilience through healthy habits instead of destructive choices.
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 own value, purpose, or potential.
Founder Karl Stauffacher understands this reality personally.
After overcoming difficult life experiences and rebuilding his future through fitness, mentorship, and discipline, Karl became passionate about helping young people avoid the same destructive paths he once faced.
In November 2025, that mission became even more urgent.
While attempting to stop the carjacking of an elderly woman, Karl was confronted by two armed teenagers...
That moment became a turning point.
What Karl saw was more than violence.
He saw young lives heading down dangerous paths without guidance, structure, or positive support.
He realized that prevention has to occur earlier.
Fitness Over Firearms Foundation was created to give youth a better alternative:
mentorship instead of negative influence
discipline instead of destruction
confidence instead of insecurity
purpose instead of hopelessness
This organization exists to help young people build strength far beyond the gym:
strength in character,
mindset, decision-making,
and leadership.
Because real change starts before bad decisions become permanent consequences.
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.
Marco's goal is to show the youth that 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