The YMCA of Central Massachusetts is a cause-driven organization that is for youth development, for healthy living and for social responsibility.
Happy 104 Anniversary to the United Way of Central Massachusetts! Together with the YMCA of Central Massachusetts we make a difference in our community – every day! From advocacy at the State House, the Annual Day of Caring, and supporting new arrivals – to volunteer recognition, food security, and workforce development – we PARTNER and create IMPACT. Thank you, United Way!!!
One of our Mission Partners, the North Central Massachusetts Faith-Based Community Coalition (NCMFBCC), has recently updated their website. The NCMFBCC is a group dedicated to helping those in need, and helping those who cannot help themselves. They are more than just a collective or group of people trying to help the community, they are like a family that helps each other out and extends a helping hand to anyone that needs it. It is their goal to be able to help as many people as they can by providing them with warm meals, positive energy, and serve it all together with a big smile! The NCMFBCC hope to be the sun shining down on anyone’s darkest hour to light up their day.
Check out their updated website HERE
We are excited to welcome you to An Evening of Impact being held on Friday, December 1st at our original YMCA home – historic Mechanics Hall in downtown Worcester!
Friday, December 1, 2023
5PM Reception / 5:30PM Program & Dinner
Mechanics Hall, Worcester
Keynote Speaker: Morgan Tuck, WNBA star
Guest Presenter: Camden Francis, Youth Entrepreneur
Guest Presenter: Jason DesJardins, LIVESTRONG® at the YMCA Instructor & Cancer Survivor
FITCHBURG — United Way of North Central Massachusetts (UWNCM) recently distributed $799,146 in grants to 40 agencies throughout the community. Funds were disbursed through two grant programs that seek to address the region’s greatest challenges and provide after and out-of-school time opportunities for local children and youth.
Through its Community Impact Fund for 2023-24, UWNCM awarded $616,335 to 31 agencies, funding 40 programs. The Community Impact Fund is a long-standing UWNCM initiative that supports critical programs in the areas of Early Education and Youth Development, Basic Needs and Economic Opportunity & Financial Literacy.
The latest round of grants was awarded in year three of a four-year cycle and is expected to make an impact for over 97,000 households based on results from the previous year, which saw a 32% increase in households served from year one. Funding will be spread throughout the 22 communities in UWNCM’s service area and support a diverse array of programs.
YMCA of Central Massachusetts – Montachusett Branch in Fitchburg received grants for three programs that will provide enrichment opportunities for children from pre-K to youth as well as support services for families.
The agency’s Executive Director, Lisa Welcome, says, “We are so grateful to UWNCM for their on-going support of our initiatives for children and families. This funding will go a long way to further our cause to strengthen the foundations of community through programs and services that support youth development, healthy living and social responsibility.”
UWNCM also recently distributed $182,810 to 13 agencies through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) After School and Out-of-School Time (ASOST) Program.
Read the full article on the Sentinel and Enterprise website
Rosie Tseng was 17 years old when she realized what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
Though she loved working with children, she had no desire to be a teacher. Nor did her interest in health and physical well-being mean she wanted to be a nutritionist, doctor or professional athlete.
What she wanted to do instead was work for the YMCA, the Christian youth development nonprofit that operates recreation facilities worldwide.
Tseng had long attended—and later served as a counselor at—YMCA camps at the Boroughs Family Branch YMCA in central Massachusetts. As luck would have it, that branch is only about an hour from Springfield College, the only college in the country where students can receive a formal education in the history and operations of the YMCA and even earn a minor in YMCA professional studies.
“I wanted to take what I learned at the Y and pass it forward,” she recalled.
The minor consists of a total of five classes on both general business management and YMCA-specific topics, including the history of the organization beyond its broad reputation as a bare-bones gym and a wildly popular Village People song. The curriculum is currently being redeveloped to keep up with “the needs of the ever-evolving YMCA movement,” according to Scott Woodaman, director of YMCA relations at Springfield, a private institution in Massachusetts.
According to Woodaman, the students in the minor and in the college’s YMCA club, which allows students to participate in YMCA-related activities without taking any classes, have unique access to various internships, volunteer opportunities and entry-level jobs at YMCAs around the country. The students also develop programming to support nearby YMCAs.
“Last year, we did summer learning-loss programming on why it’s important to read over the summertime and made bookmarks and encouraged young people to read,” Woodaman said. “We don’t know what we’re doing this year, because, when the students get back to campus—they’re the ones that designed the program—we hear what the YMCAs need, and then the students come up with the meat of the programming and what they want to deliver.”
With many institutions increasingly focused on career and technical education, it is not uncommon for students to pursue minors or certificates in specific skills relevant to their career path, whether it’s health care or data engineering. But few, if any, focus on a single organization, as Springfield’s YMCA professional studies minor does.
Springfield’s history with the YMCA dates back to the college’s founding in the mid-1800s—just a few years after the first YMCA opened—to train Sunday school teachers and YMCA administrators. Well over a century later, the college has grown considerably, serving about 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students; in keeping with its YMCA roots, many students pursue athletics or recreation-based majors, such as physical education. (Aside from its connection to the YMCA, Springfield also has the distinction of being the birthplace of basketball and the original home of the Basketball Hall of Fame.)
Though the college’s partnership with the Y has changed over the years, it remains a central part of Springfield’s identity. The college’s core educational philosophy, Humanics—which “calls for educating students in spirit, mind, and body for leadership in service to others”—derives from the YMCA’s goals of developing a healthy spirit, mind and body. The college houses the YMCA Hall of Fame, which honors volunteers and employees who have made significant contributions to the organization. Springfield’s current president, Mary-Beth A. Cooper, has long been involved with the YMCA, serving as the chairperson for the Greater Rochester YMCA before coming to Springfield.
“I’d worked as a volunteer for 25 years,” she said. “And then I learned that there was actually a college that had a tie to YMCA, so that intrigued me enough to apply.”
The minor lost some students during the pandemic, though Woodaman, who has been in his role for less than a year, plans to recruit incoming freshmen in an effort to build it back up. Historically, the program has appealed in large part to students who were “Y kids”—those who spent a lot of time at their neighborhood YMCA as a child, attending camps or using the recreational facilities. Springfield even recruits at various YMCA events in the surrounding region, with the hope of reaching young people who might not know there is a college they can attend that will allow them to continue to do the community service work they love.
But there are even draws for those who have never set foot in a Y. Students have the opportunity to travel on service-oriented trips—such as expeditions to build houses in the badlands of South Dakota or to help repair a YMCA in Haiti—as well as attend various national YMCA conferences and events.
Stone also said he could see how the minor could potentially prove useful even to students who don’t necessarily want to work at the YMCA, especially if they have an interest in the world of nonprofits or humanitarian work more broadly.
“The role of minors is to try to give you some options,” he said. “What a minor like this might represent is … that they have interest in that general area of helping people, and that would be a positive thing to an employer.”
For what it’s worth, many of the students who complete the minor do go on to work for the organization; a number of Springfield graduates have become leaders either in local Y branches or the national YMCA of the USA, according to Cooper; Tseng is currently a youth development director at her childhood YMCA.
In that role, she said, she’s living out her dream of being involved in YMCA camps and creating “programs for kids of all ages.”
Read the original article on www.insidehighered.com
Learn More About the Boroughs Family Branch YMCA
