Our Story
Pointing Forward is a student-led effort to remove the two biggest barriers standing between schools and their first fencing program.
Arnav Chhabra · Newark Academy
My name is Arnav Chhabra, and I founded Pointing Forward while fencing for Newark Academy. Fencing was not something I grew up around — I found it, and it changed the way I think about competition, patience, and what an opportunity is actually worth.
Almost as soon as I started, I ran into two problems that had nothing to do with technique.
En garde
Point forwardFrom ready position to action.
Before I ever scored a touch, I had already watched the cost stack up — mask, jacket, plastron, glove, lamé, body cords, a weapon, club fees. For a lot of families that number is simply the end of the conversation, and for a school it means a program never gets off the ground.
When I told people I fenced, the answer was almost always a joke about pirates. Fencing is an Olympic sport that rewards thinking as much as athleticism, and most students never find that out because it is never in front of them.
So I started working with clubs and high schools around New Jersey to get this program running. I asked coaches what they had sitting in storage, asked fencers what they had outgrown, and asked schools what was actually stopping them from starting a team. The answer was almost always the same: gear.
Meanwhile, there is a huge amount of perfectly good equipment doing nothing — masks in garages, jackets outgrown after one season, spare body cords in the bottom of a club bag. Pointing Forward moves that equipment from where it is unused to where it can start something.
Every donated piece is one less reason for a school to say no, and one more chance for a student to pick up a blade for the first time. That is the whole idea: point the gear forward, and point the sport forward with it.
Create opportunities by giving donated equipment a second life. Gear that sits unused in a closet, a club storage room, or an outgrown bag can become the reason a school starts its first fencing program.
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