Inside a fitness center on Morrissey Boulevard, 31-year-old Lumene Montissol is stretching out, getting ready for a training session alongside a handful of other athletes. Known by the nickname “Lightning” for her speed on the track, Montisoll is working with the Dorchester Train 4 Life program for local adults training for the Special Olympics.
“It came from when I first started track and field in middle school. I started Special Olympics when I was 14, and now I am 31. I do the 200-meter, long jump, and the relay.”
She added: “I went to the USA games in 2022. It was great. It made me feel included to be part of Team Massachusetts. I got two gold medals and a silver medal. The two golds were for the 200 and the long jump, and the silver was the relay.”
The medals didn’t come without hard work. And the training has only intensified for Montissol. For 12 weeks straight last fall, she spent every Monday night working out with a group of young adults – all with intellectual disabilities – at an hour-long training session led by InnerCity Weightlifting (ICW), a non-profit that helps formerly imprisoned men and women.
“InnerCity Weightlifting is giving back to individuals who were incarcerated or impacted by systemic racism,” said Boston Police officer Tommy Porter, a well-known community service officer at Dorchester’s Area C-11 station who volunteers with the program as well.
“They’re giving back, and they are personal trainers to the kids with special needs.”
On a recent visit to the gym, Porter chatted up Montissol while the rest of the workout group trickled in and started to warm up for their last training session before a holiday break.
They were eager to show their ICW trainers – Daunte Beal, Nate Boatman, and Meaghan Farragher – how much they have improved over the last few months.
Mikey, 28, was quick to get his measurements taken. Nearby, Malachi waited patiently, watching one of his favorites, the 2025 Superman movie, on his phone, while Erin squeezed in a few more minutes of Dora the Explorer.
Once everyone in the group had heights, heart rates, blood pressures, and waist measurements checked, it was time to hit the turf.
There, the athletes showed off their flexibility with toe touches, maxed out on squats and push-ups, tested their broad jumps, and completed timed sled pushes. Between activities, with Officer Porter nearby, the athletes laughed and cheered each other on while the trainers kept track of the results.
Beal, who is from Dorchester but now lives in Roxbury, said that ICW has impacted his life, and now he gets to have an impact on others.
“ICW is a nonprofit organization that speaks for the agency of people most affected by mass incarceration, as well as systemic racism and gang violence. I myself spent over 17 years incarcerated,” he said.
“Afterward, I got out, and I came to just find a free gym, and then I took the ICW certificate, and now I’m nationally certified as a professional trainer. I’ve been doing it for two years, and it’s great.”
Now, the assistant manager at ICW, Beal said he was inspired to work with the Special Olympics group because two of his nephews have autism.
“It’s something that’s already near and dear to me.
Boatman, a Mattapan resident, added that volunteering with the Special Olympics group is “a way to give back to the community” and a “really good way to connect with other people.”
Like Beal, Boatman is a certified personal trainer, but it took a while for him to get there.
“I’ve been with ICW since I was 17 years old,” said Boatman, now 28. “It just started as somewhere to go other than hanging out on the streets with my friends. Just to be able to say that I’m doing things differently.”
Today, Boatman has his own brand, Drill Fitness. He said ICW has been his “backbone” through it all.
“When they come in here, it’s a community. They don’t have to feel pressure or like outcasts or anything. We are all one. That’s my job here – to make everyone feel equal and work together to push each other,” he said. “You are who you set yourself out to be. You can be whoever you want as long as you put the energy into it.”
He and Farragher have loved seeing each participant improve over the last few months.
“The progress we have seen, especially with some of our new athletes, is great,” said Farragher, who is also ICW’s Corporate and Community Engagement manager. “I think it’s a really great sense of community, not that the Special Olympics doesn’t already provide that, but I think it’s just a little bit different because they get to learn new skills and pick up weights.”
Farragher, 28, said the program has just as much impact on some of the ICW trainers as it does the athletes.
“There are a lot of restrictions to resources if you have been incarcerated and you’re systematically viewed differently, as if that’s not already an issue in terms of race anyway,” she said. “ICW offers so many resources and job opportunities.”
After a short break for the holidays, Lightning and her friends are back, participating in the winter/spring session that began on Jan. 20 and will wrap up on April 7.
